From the Sports Pages

Written By: Cudo on February 11, 2009 No Comment

A couple news items jumped out at me today from the sports section related to game operations and sports marketing.

The first was a great promotion by Shaquille O’Neal who was in Cleveland a day early for a game against the Cavaliers and used that time to host a food-drive event. What made this out-of-market CR event more interesting was the target: Peanut Butter. If you haven’t heard, there is a massive recall of peanut butter due to some Salmonella problems….so why would they ask for a product that has been so negatively in the news?

First of all, it’s topical. The media has something to sink their teeth into. Also if anyone bought peanut butter recently, they might be more inclined to hand it over to charity than eat it, and finally they will serve as a bit of a clearing house for peanut butter. They will have the benefit of dedicating the time to check with the different brands on recall, which is probably easier to do in batches of 100 similar cans that one by one. This promotion was a very thoughtful, topical and useful one by Shaq and his people. The checked peanut butter will be used in Southern Ohio to restock a food bank in an area hit hard my mass lay-offs. (News)
The second news item just made me laugh. It’s the coverage of the NBA’s new All-Star contest, HORSE. Aside from the comically forced sponsored renaming of the game, where the contestants will be spelling out the name of an insurance company, not HORSE, what’s making me laugh is that the sports pages (at least here in Cleveland) are carefully spelling out the rules to HORSE. It makes me wonder whose reading the sports pages who would have no idea the rules of the game. It’s all the news that’s fit to print I suppose.

For those of you who aren’t familiar (from wikipedia):

H-O-R-S-E
A common, less athletic game for smaller groups of players is H-O-R-S-E (pronounced as “horse”; occasionally other words are used but the game is otherwise identical). The game may be played with as few as two people, and as many as desired. The only skill required is shooting; no player is allowed to defend.

The object is to not acquire the five letters in the word “horse”. With two players competing, player #1 is allowed to shoot from anywhere on the court and, if he makes the shot, then player #2 must duplicate the same shot from the same position. If player #2 misses, he receives the first “letter” from the word “horse” (in this case – an “H”). However, if player #1 misses his original shot; then player #2 is now free to shoot from anywhere on the court and, hopefully, force player #1 to try and duplicate his made shots. A player is knocked out of the game once he has enough letters to spell out the word “horse.”

The game is essentially the same with three or more players but the rules may vary slightly. In most cases, all players must make the same shot as the first player or receive a letter, until the turn returns to the first player. Although in a much less common form, a miss by the second (or any subsequent) player still results in a letter for that player, but the court then becomes open again and the next player immediately following the player who misses is allowed to shoot from anywhere he wants. In some variants, control of the ball will cycle indefinitely until one player gets a letter. In these variants, the person who made the original shot could wind up with a letter.

Often, the shots in H-O-R-S-E are trick shots that are rarely, if ever, taken in a real game; although unlikely, if the shot succeeds, the opponent is much more likely to miss and therefore receive a letter.

Various variations of the rules are sometimes used. In one variation, the player who choses the next shot may not chose a shot that has already been made.

Now we have to wonder why Timberwovles trick-shot man Kevin Love wasn’t invited.