UMASS Student denied $10K for made half court shot. Promo Company said his foot was on the line

[jayhovah]

Problem is they didn't stipulate that before hand and there's not rules defined half court shot by basketball rule, unlike threes or FTs .

If you're at the midcourt stripe, 99.99% are going to call that a half court shot.

It's 10k, not 1M. Pay him and avoid the negative publicity that's going to cost you waaaay more than 10k. But leave it to an insurance company not to want to pay out.

I’ve read the Odds On Promtions contract and all of the rules are clearly stipulated up front.

But OOP is actually not the sponsor of the contest and has no contract with the contestant. The school is sponsoring the contest. The school must decide whether to eat the $10,000 or tell the kid that he didn’t complete the task as defined. Then if they choose to pay him, then they can have a fight with the insurance company.

 

[oldsports_]

If his foot was on the line or passed it obviously it wasn't a half court shot

 

[PushupMan]

Yes, you get almost credit if your toe is on the line of a 3 point shot. 0.66666666667% of the credit to be exact.

There ya go! The $6,667 solution!

 

[WildcatfaninOhio]

 

[Larry Skaggs]

UMass needs to give him half of they NIL money and make it right

 

[bthaunert]

As I predicted. Happens very time.

 

[ukcatz12]

As I predicted. Happens very time.

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This pretty much happens every time an insurance company denies one of these payouts. Whatever entity ended up taking out the insurance policy for the contest ends up paying for the good publicity.

 

[the nail at the foul line]

I used to go to a lot of games that had promotions like this. Almost always women shot. The exceptions were boys under 10. I have seen a bunch of half court shots make it to the free throw line.

 

[HeismaNole]

As I predicted. Happens very time.

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It would be pure idiocy to take the bad publicity for this. They got it right quickly.

 

[thack_kat]

Sounds like Pat Adams was on the call.

 

[Tf2217]

Does anyone know if the guy who hit the half court shot at Rupp Saturday actually got the money?

He was brought out during a timeout for the contest. Missed two shots (he was supposed to get 3 tries) and then the refs came on the court and shooed everyone off. The clock was at 13:08 or something like that, and I’m almost positive someone made a mistake and thought it was a media timeout when it wasn’t. Those things are done during media timeouts because there’s more time. This was just a random full timeout, so there wasn’t enough time to complete the whole thing.

As everyone is leaving the court the guy grabs the ball and just heaves it down the court and it goes in. But with all the commotion I have no clue if he was actually behind the line or not, and if there was supposed to be someone watching to make sure they definitely weren’t doing it because everyone was leaving the court.

Damn I would give it to him. Especially since he technically hit it. Good PR if nothing else.

 

[bbncal02]

As I predicted. Happens very time.

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They did the right thing.

 

[know1]

If it was his last shot, they shouldn't have paid him.

If it wasn't his last shot, they should have offered him $2500 or the rest of his shots/time. His choice.

They screwed up by paying.

 

[BlueSince92]

So now that dumbass insurance company lost brand value by bitching in the first place and lost even more by standing their ground till the school had to say, “if you won’t make it right we will.”

If they’re the only fish in a tiny pond in their market sector I guess it won’t matter. But that seems nearly impossible in freaking Massachusetts. If they have any competition their competition will be killing them for years. Whereas if they had said from the get go, “you were over the line but we decided to pay you anyway” they’d have gotten lots of free advertising from that and way more than $10,000 of brand value in the form of good will.

Even though an insurance company’s business model really is largely screwing people, someone missed the obvious cues that there’s a big difference between screwing the average customer privately when it’s middlin sized company versus individual, and screwing a college kid publicly when everyone’s sentiments are strongly with the kid and it’s their company against the world in a spectacle that was planned from the beginning to create hype and leverage fan passion whether the kid hit or missed. Bean counters should never be allowed out of the trunk.

If you break down the math any way you want, from the physics of the difference in dynes and ergs required when you’re behind that line versus two inches over, to the neuroscience of seeing the target and coordinating muscle groups to aim when you’re that far out, the question of spotting someone three inches or not makes zero difference statistically. It’s far below the level of the variation in ability that automatically gives different people an inherent advantage or disadvantage when they’re chosen randomly to begin with. It’s fine to have a rule about the line technically so you’re not gonna get jumped by some shady lawyer trying to make some weird ableism case or something out of a situation where someone takes ten steps over that line and makes it. But for any situation like this where someone is clearly trying to follow the rules and flubs by a fraction so small it’s obviously not even helping them, if you balk you’re only making yourself into every cartoon villain very publicly.

Idiots.

If you care that much about it then make the school set up a folding table on its side on the line and then bam. Problem solved. But only if you approach it that way in advance instead of shooting yourself in the face when you can only come across looking like monsters.

 

[TheDude73]

Really, then how would you define it? A free throw means feet behind the FT line, a three point shot means feet behind the three point line, but a half court shot just means anything kinda close to the half court line?

I’m just saying I don’t think it’s an “official” rule. Maybe a fan/spectator rule but not official because it means nothing points-wise.

 

[UKAlum84]

Bad interpretation.

"Half-Court" vs "Behind-The-Line" Shot

If a line prevents you from gaining the money, you might as well also rename the shot itself.

Anybody with half a brain, will realize how hard it is to make a half court shot, especially when you don't necessarily train to make one.