Long putts, halfcourt shots and other in-game contests keep fans engaged and raise the fun factor

LINCOLN, Neb. — Like he had done many times before, Travis Weber went to Pinnacle Bank Arena with his uncle last month to watch a Nebraska men's basketball game.

The game against Southern California was no ordinary outing for the 42-year-old from Lincoln. Far from it.

He went home the winner of a 2025 Porsche Macan valued at $75,000. All he had to do was putt a golf ball the length of the court through a tiny slot at the bottom of a board. Video of his slow-rolling putt, all 94 feet of it, and his Tiger Woods fist pump went viral.

Every night across the country, fans vie for prizes in contests staged during breaks in the action at sporting events big and small. In basketball, it might be halfcourt shots or length-of-the-court putts. In football, it might be throwing a ball at a target or kicking a field goal. In hockey, it might be taking a shot from center ice.

The vast majority of these real people efforts come and go with polite applause from the crowd, an amusing distraction while the real athletes are getting a rest. Some of them are a lot more fun than that, with explosions of joy and disbelief that something great just happened — and it's been that way for a long time.

Jim Kahler, director of the Sports & Entertainment Management Program at Cleveland State University, said in-game contests have been part of the fan experience since the mid-20th century. Bill Veeck was famous for the wacky ways he engaged fans as a minor and major league baseball owner — you may remember his 1979 Disco Demolition debacle at a Chicago White Sox game — and Kahler said the late NBA Commissioner David Stern encouraged franchises to emphasize entertainment as much as the game itself.

''Those breaks at halftime and quarter breaks and two-minute timeouts became valuable inventory,'' said Kahler, who previously was chief marketing officer and senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

''You could tie it to the growth of sponsorship," Kahler said. "You've got more and more sponsors than ever before. Teams are smart enough to sell those spots. The sponsor and the team have to figure out something that's interactive and engage with the fans in a way the fans appreciate. Then it kind of became the arms race of who can come up with the better idea.''

The chances of winning

Of course, there is risk involved with offering prizes worth tens of thousands of dollars. About a half-dozen companies in the United States assume that risk for sponsors and make good on payoffs to contest winners.

Bob Hamman, who founded Dallas-based SCA Promotions in 1986, and his son and company vice president Chris Hamman base their fees on the odds they set for each contest. For example, Bob Hamman said, there's a 50% chance a person picked at random will make a free throw. That drops to 14% for a 3-pointer and 2% for a halfcourt shot.

For Weber's putt at Nebraska, Pennsylvania-based Interactive Promotions Group wrote the insurance policy to mitigate Porsche of Omaha's risk of having to give away the $75,000 Macan.

IPG CEO and co-founder Greg Esterhai said the chances of a random fan making a 94-foot putt into a 3-inch by 3-inch slot are 1 in 100. IPG set the premium at $16,200 to cover a total of eight putting attempts — one contestant per game for eight games.

Esterhai said the claim for Weber's Porsche was approved after IPG reviewed video of the putt and verified conditions were met, such as Weber never having played golf professionally and not having been allowed a practice attempt.

At UMass, there was a recent dispute over payment for a $10,000 halfcourt shot, with the school announcing last week it would pay off the winner after the insurance company covering the prize was said to have reneged because the contestant's foot was over the line.

Esterhai said IPG insures about $2 million in prizes for thousands of in-game contests each year and that there are about 250 winners, but only one or two take home a prize valued at $75,000 or more. Asked if he roots for contestants to win, Bob Hamman paused. ''Well, not really,'' he said, laughing. ''But generally speaking, we know there has to be winners. If there are no winners, we have no business.''

The joy of winning

Chris Hamman said a watershed moment for in-game contests occurred in 1993, when Chicago Bulls fan Don Calhoun's overhand throw from the opposite free-throw line swished through the hoop 80 feet away for $1 million.

The insurance company balked at paying because Calhoun had walked on to play basketball at two junior colleges a few years earlier and played in a handful of games. That was disqualifying, according to the insurance company. The Bulls — reportedly with Michael Jordan's involvement — and sponsors ended up making good on the payoff.

Porsche of Omaha has conducted the putting contest for four years at Nebraska basketball games. Weber said a Nebraska Athletics employee tapped him on the shoulder a couple minutes before tipoff to ask if he wanted to be the putter during a break in the first half.

Weber readily accepted. He owns and operates a home inspection business and is an occasional golfer. Putting, he said, is the strength of his game. Weber said his strategy was to aim straight at the target. Fortunately, he pushed the putt a bit right and it began to break to the left about 6 or 7 feet from the slot and went through.

Weber said Tuesday he expects to take delivery of his Porsche in a couple of weeks. Naturally, he chose Husker red as the color.

''I had never been selected for a contest ever,'' he said. ''I wanted to do the free throw, halfcourt shot thing. Never got to. I guess this was something I'm actually good at, putting, so that helped my odds a little bit."

___

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP women's college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball