What Punishment for Cheaters?

It's been a weird week in the sports world. First, the New England Patriots get caught using videotape to spy on the signal calling of the New York Jets during their opening-week blowout in Jersey. The NFL is now trying to figure the appropriate punishment - forfeiture? loss of draft picks? a fine?

Meanwhile, a spying scandal in Formula 1 has (allegedly) ended with the McLaren-Mercedes team being "excluded" from the 2007 World Constructors Championship and fined $100 million (yes, you read that right) as punishment for getting their hands on technical data from rival Ferrari. Oddly enough, while McLaren the team is excluded from the championship, its drivers - rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton and 2-time defending World Champion Fernando Alonso - will suffer no consequences in terms of points, race wins, etc. As a result, Ferrari has virtually been handed the Constructor's title, while Hamilton and Alonso will battle it out between themselves for the Driver's title.

I'll admit - this makes no sense to me. Presumably the exclusion of the McLaren team comes from the fact that the Ferrari info gave them some advantage during the season. In other words, it helped them beat Ferrari. Hamilton and Alonso were driving the cars and benefit equally from the illegal behavior - how can they be allowed to profit? Even assuming that the drivers had no part in the spying stuff (which I think is the case), their points accumulated so far this year have been tainted. At the very least, one wonders if the eventual champ will get the * by his name in the record book.

Which brings me back to the Patriots - should they forfeit the win over the Jets? Seems to me they should. Although the players likely weren't involved in spying on the Jets, they (potentially) benefited from it. The only way to deprive the Pats of the fruits of their crime is via forfeit.

I'm reminded of this post I wrote about repeated Government wrong doing in appellate procedure. It won't sink in that something wrong is going on until a price is paid that makes them take notice. I don't doubt that $100 million will get McLaren's (or Mercedes's) attention - but if they can still claim to win a World Championship at the end of the year, I'm sure it's a price worth paying.