Operation Flagrant Foul is the latest documentary in Netflix's acclaimed Untold sports documentary series. This time around, the series tells the story of the infamous NBA referee, Tim Donaghy.
Tim was one of the league's top officiators, but when the news broke in 2007 that he was being investigated for betting on his own games, he started a media storm that shook the world of professional basketball to its core and Tim lost his job and wife in the process.
In Operation Flagrant Foul, you'll learn all about the betting scandal, plus you'll hear from Tim and his two co-conspirators, Tommy Martino and Jimmy "The Sheep" Battista (plus plenty more key figures, including Tim's ex-wife and FBI agent Phil Scala) as they explore the scandal through revealing sit-down interviews.
But where is Tim Donaghy now? How many games did he officiate? We've got the answers to your lingering questions about Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul.
How many games did Tim Donaghy officiate?
Tim Donaghy worked for the NBA for 13 years from 1994 to 2007. When the news broke of the FBI investigation in 2007, Tim resigned from his post, though an NBA internal investigation ultimately found that he did not fix any of his games.
Over his career, he refereed nearly 800 games (via National World). Before the NBA, he was a referee for both the CBA minor league and high school basketball.
Where is Tim Donaghy now?
Tim was sentenced to 15 months jail time (via ESPN) but he was sent to a halfway house to complete his sentence partway through his incarceration after being badly beaten by another inmate, according to Bleacher Report.
During his time in prison, he wrote Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal That Rocked the NBA, an autobiographical memoir that details his involvement in and the inner workings of the scandal. It was published after he left prison in 2009.
He continued to live in Florida after his release, but he briefly ran into more legal trouble in 2017 when he was arrested for allegedly threatening a man with a hammer. However, the case against Tim was later dropped.
In January 2021, Tim made his return to the sporting world when he started officiating for Major League Wrestling. For his debut appearance, he served as a special guest referee for a Caribbean Strap wrestling match between Savio Vega and Richard Holliday. During the match, he played up to his past as a crooked referee and helped Holliday secure a win.
Operation Flagrant Foul isn't the only sports doc that Tim has appeared in, as he also featured in 2016's Dirty Games: The Dark Side of Sports.
How is Scott Foster still a referee?
Tim Donaghy has said that his friend and fellow NBA official, Scott Foster, who is also mentioned in the documentary, had no hand in the criminal matter, and he doubled down on this statement in Operation Flagrant Foul. In the documentary, Tim explains that, though he was very good friends with Scott and the pair spoke on the phone "a couple of times a day", Scott Foster "had no idea what was going on" within the betting scandals.
His name was somewhat tarnished due to his personal connection to Tim, but, as The Cinemaholic explains, Scott was cleared by the FBI and the NBA's independent investigator, allowing him to return to his job, and he continues to serve as an NBA referee to this day.
According to Scott Foster's National Basketball Referees Association page (at the time of writing), Scott Foster has officiated 1477 matches including 187 play-offs and 19 Finals games.
What is the highest-paid NBA referee salary?
According to a breakdown from NBC Sports, NBA referees earn an estimated salary of anywhere between $150,000 and $550,000 every year.
Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul is available to stream now exclusively on Netflix. The next documentary in the series, The Race of the Century, hits Netflix on September 6.
