Is the “NFL or NBA” video listing alleged crimes committed by US Congressmen correct?

Claim:

In a viral video, a long list of crimes initially portrayed as being committed by NBA or NFL players are rightfully exposed as being committed by members of the US Congress.

Evaluation:

In early February 2023, a TikTok video with the caption “Which one is it? NBA or NFL?” viral. In the video, an unidentified man speaking from a church pulpit reads out a list of various crimes and allegations and asks listeners if they think he is talking about the NBA or the NFL. At the end, he reveals that the list allegedly refers to “the 435 members of the United States Congress,” a nod to the US House of Representatives.

The video quickly garnered millions of views and then shared Reddit’s r/Conservative subreddit, TwitterAnd youtube.

The clip also appeared as an article on the conservative news website NotTheBee.com with the caption “The answer to this question may shock you.” The article included a tweet with the embedded video, captioned: “WATCH THE END. Does the NFL or the NBA have the most criminals? Are you surprised?”

In the viral video, the man speaking appeared to be sharing a story he had heard from his son or read online. We transcribed the following clip:

And he said, “Dad, guess what it is? Is it NBA or NFL?”

36 people were accused of adultery.

Seven were arrested for fraud.

19 were accused of writing bad checks.

117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least two companies.

Three have served for assault.

71, I repeat 71, can’t get a credit card due to bad credit.

14 were arrested for drug offenses.

Eight were arrested for shoplifting.

21 are currently defendants in court proceedings.

And 84 were arrested for drunk driving in the last year.

How many of you think NBA? How many of you think NFL?

Well, the answer is neither.

They are the 435 members of the United States Congress.

The list the man reads out in the video is the kind of story that usually evokes a long line of “So true!” Reactions on Facebook, although it’s far from true.

As we noted in our review above, the claim that this list is an accurate list of crimes, arrests, and criminal charges against members of Congress is false. In fact, readers might be surprised to learn that we first debunked the same list (in writing) more than two decades before it appeared on TikTok.

In 2000, our reporting indicated that the list had been made public CapitolHillBlue.com in 1999. It did not include any sources, citations, or evidence of any kind to support the data. The article was later removed from this website on an unknown date.

At the time, we also noticed that variants of the same list were floating around with a final disclosure attributing the crimes not to members of Congress, but to members of the Canadian Parliament, UK Parliament, government agencies of other countries, and even the NBA and NFL.

On March 25, 2005, CapitolHillBlue.com issued a retraction for publishing the list in 1999. In the short story, the site blamed an intern for the mistakes that had been made.

Note: We have not yet been able to determine when or where the TikTok video featured in this story was originally recorded, nor did we know the identity of the man speaking. We’ll update this story in the future as we learn more details.

Sources