If we have learned anything in recent years about corruption in sports, it’s that few care what governments or governing bodies do. People care only about what time the game starts and whether their team wins…

Here in the United States, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell became a laughingstock last summer when he somehow thought that suspending Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for two games after he was arrested for beating up his then-fiancee in a casino elevator was a punishment that fit the crime.

After being publicly savaged for the decision — and his weak attempts to defend it — Goodell stumbled through an embarrassing news conference trying to explain that, if he’d only seen the full tape of Rice pummeling his fiancee in that elevator, the punishment would have been different. There were calls for Goodell to resign from his $44 million-a-year job, and there were more mistakes made in the case of another star running back, Adrian Peterson, who took a switch to his 4-year-old son.

The 32 NFL owners backed Goodell. Why? Because he’s made them even richer than they were before he took over in 2006. How did the public react? The league’s TV ratings were as high as they’ve ever been. “Sunday Night Football” on NBC continued to be the highest-rated prime-time TV show of the fall — not sports TV show, TV show.