The DUMBEST Rules in Sports 

The rule is only stupid if it doesn't benefit my team

The score of 0 is called love in tennis as a corruption of “l’œuf”, French for “the egg” as in “goose egg” as in “zero”

Perna’s jokes about him either having a law degree, previously being a lawyer, or in one video, being disbarred, get me every time lol

Fun fact: you can call in to the pga and let them know of a golfer broke the rules and can potentially cost them a few points.

Mr. Burns: Mattingly, I thought I told you to trim those sideburns? Go home, you're off the team, for good! Don Mattingly: Fine. I still like him better than Steinbrenner.

I actually never knew about the fair catch leading to a uncontested field goal rule. Shit I honestly like that one

NBA Rule that never made sense to me and should go away: When the opposing team makes a shot, and you take a time-out, instead of in-bounding the ball from under the net, like normal, for some reason, you get to in-bound the ball from some arbitrary line midway through the *opponent's* side of the court. This would be like if your opponent scored on you in the NFL, and you called a time-out, instead of a kick-off, you just got the ball at the opponent's 40 yard line. What the hell is this? Why is this? Why does a time-out move the ball?

A NFL Bets app is pure genius

I definitely agree about the new touchback rule. It started out as moving the touchback from the 20 to the 25 yard line. Kickers then adjusted to drop the kick off around the goal line and force the returner to return it in order to save the additional 5 yards of field position. Since this new strategy flew in the face of safety, the fair catch inside the 25 yard line rule came about. Honestly you might as well just give the other team the ball at the 25 instead of pretending that kick offs matter anymore.

Damn! Tennis players are held to a higher standard than our police departments

The NFL betting rule in NFL facilities and team facilities is for a couple reasons. 1: Every state has a different law on gambling they can't make rules that cover each state when team travel so to make sure no player/employee of the league is breaking a law then outlaw it. 2: They do not want to allow players to play cards, dice, etc in/on NFL team property as it can cause a lot of problems internally. What they do on their own time away from the property is up to them and the laws that cover it. People are so caught up on the betting online they don't take into account all the laws and types of gambling this actually covers. Not just sports bets.

The Tuck Rule always gets me... It's like they just made the shit up mid game lol.

I'm torn on the basketball one. Like sure, it sucks to watch fouls when a team is down by like 8+. But at that point, the game is over anyway and you can just leave or stop watching. But those fouls are really important for keeping alive the 1-2 point games. Where you can send them to the line, and still have a chance to win the game with a three even if they make their shots. Its really much more than a 1% chance and I think that removing that ability will kill games even earlier, since the shot clock and game clock will essentially determine if you have enough time to actually win a game well before the actual final buzzer. If you want to remove the fouls, I would want to see an alternative to come back in those close games.

For many years the kickoff landing in the end zone has counted as a touchback. It's been so long since an offensive player could either catch it off a bounce or pick it up off the ground and attempt a return from beyond the goal line that most people seem to have forgotten that it was once allowed.

I'm a little sad that, in Perna's big Yankee beard rant, he didn't mention how Aaron Hicks has been raking for my Orioles ever since he left the team and started growing his beard again.

I grew up during the Pete Rose scandal so i get the gambling rules. What i despise is the hypocrisy by the NFL. If you don't endorse your players gambling you need to stop endorsing gambling.

The kickoff rule of the XFL is interesting. I prefer that a lot over the new rule of the NFL

You completely left out the part of the tennis example where the other team's players actively tried to get that team to default. They were like middle schoolers telling rumors behind the bleachers.

Regarding the last rule, a Canadian basketball league, the CEBL, has a rule where once there is under 4 minutes left on the clock, there becomes a target score that the teams have to reach. That score is 9 points more than what the leading team has at that point (example: score is 73-67, the target score becomes 82). Whichever team reaches or exceeds that target score first wins the game. I believe the All Star game used (uses?) this rule, and it's called the Elam rule. This prevents intentional fouls late in games, and also means that teams can't get complacent even with a sizable lead. Personally, I like this rule.

C'mon Brandon....how could you forget fumbling into/through the opponents end zone results in a touchback/turnover?

Gardner Minshew would be the most successful mustache on the Yankees

How about that fumble into the end zone touchback rule?

Football dumbest rules: removing your shirt to celebrate a goal being a bookable offense; keeper been forced not to move at all during penalties; the current handball rule.

Metal bats are dead compared to what they used to be. They have BBCOR now so they can’t have excessive “pop”. So the advantage of the metal bat is really the increased sweet spot on the bat. So I think they can make the bats more dead. Because metal bats make a lot of money for manufactures, so they probably won’t get ride of them. But I agree they should probably go wood.

Even my parents in their 60's hate beards. It's just an old people thing. They tell me I look better without it and it's complete nonsense lol

In football, I hate that fumbling out of the endzone equals a turnover and touchback. Ridiculously unfair punishment. If you fumble out of bounds anywhere else on the field, you get the ball back at the spot of the fumble. That should hold no matter where the ball goes out

dear god the pirate peg-leg joke was so dumb, it caught me off guard hahaha

The worst rule: automatic penalty if you are less than 6ft away from tom brady. Even Giselle got flagged.

Intentional fouls at the end of an NBA game should result in 1 free throw and the ball.

You forgot the touchback rule on offense. The ball going out of the back / side of the end zone automatically being a turnover makes no sense. The offensive team should get the ball back at the 20 or something. Call it the Derek Carr rule.

What's "obscure" about a field goal attempt after a fair catch. The whole point of a fair catch is it gives you a free kick. If you're in range, of course you can kick a field goal.

I don't get why the NBA hasn't done anything about the late game fouling when they always try to make games faster

By far the stupidest rule is the change of possession and touchback for a ball squirting out of the endzone

Intentional fouling is the only way a team can get back into a game like that. Without it, we wouldn't see players choking to make free throws at the end of games like paul george did against the Suns last playoffs that cost them a game

offsides in soccer is ridiculous, it removes any fast break attack as in basketball thereby assuring a low scoring game that is really boring to endure.

Still can't comprehend how this channel still isn't at a million subs yet

I really dislike in baseball that a foul ball can roll back to being fair as long as it happens before it reaches 1st or 3rd base. Any ball that lands foul in the outfield is always a foul ball. Two rules for the same event.

Beardless Brandon will haunt my nightmares

One thing I learned from an old encyclopedia was that the team that returned punts and kick offs was called “The Suicide Squad”.

Flopping has legit made me stop watching basketball. Its embarrassing.

Defensive holding in nfl is 5 yards but automatic first down. I hate the automatic part of it. 3rd and 10, weird play happens where offense doesn't get first down, but wait, holding of defense. Just make it a 10 yard penalty so if the offense is within 10 yards, they get the first down. If they are are not, they get 10 yards and re-do down. Just seems so much in offense favor obviously lol

The rule about fumbling the ball out of the end zone is the worst one in all of football.

They should either abolish the kickoff altogether and replace it with the scoring team being essentially put in a 4th and 15 situation in their own territory (so the lowest risk option is a punt), or just adopt the XFL's adjusted kickoff. They have to do *something* to reduce injuries on kickoffs, and the fair catch rule either doesn't address the issue (blockers still have to wait for the ball to come down, so the front line blockers have already made contact by that time), or it doesn't come into play at all (the receiver can just opt not to fair catch it and return it anyway, which is functionally the same as the rule not being changed at all).

"Saftey?" Anyhow I laughed a few times.

2:29 bro flipped us off

I always wondered about tennis scoring - I found out that the 0-15-30-40 comes from using 15 minutes of a clock face for the scoring, and later "45" became 40. The "love" for zero comes from the French word for egg "l'oeuf" as the shape of "0".

Always a solid video my guy! You missed my personal least favorite rule though. In college football if you spike the ball with less than 3 seconds left the clock just runs out. It's such an obscure rule that when it happens usually everyone is blue balled from watching the end of a possible game winning drive. 😢

Amazing video, top notch, keep it up fam

The 1 point safety on kicks is pretty dumb cause it will never actually happen. Just exists as a rule because we need a what if just in case it ever does.

Association football players cannot remove their shirt for almost any reason while on the field of play because of sponsorships, yet a player is entitled to lift up his shirt (and potentially reveal sponsors) so long as the neck hole remains around the neck and does not come over the head. A player may also remove their shirt once they've come off the field of play to reveal any sponsors, or after the game has finished. Make it make sense. Just kills the excitement out of goal celebrations in the last minute

7:39 wow, this bet 1/3 salary makes so much sense. Makes me wonder why two rival teams never trade 1st round picks so whoever has the worse record gets the worse pick.

Finding this channel has been an absolute pleasure

I think the football rule should be if you go down, you're down. That would eliminate all the nauseating "was he touched?!?!?!" Inconclusive replays that happen every year

Another great video! Love your content! But, did you notice that you misspelled "safety"? It was spelled "saftey"...😂😂😂

@12:27 you safely misspelled safety and let it pass without comment. love the show.

One rule thats gonna drive me crazy is the new fair catch rule its gonna be so annoying seeing them get extra yds they didnt deserve great vid Perna

Great video. Burst out laughing at your “explanation” of the physics of the velocity of a baseball.

Originally, the game scoring was 15, 30, 45, point was based off of an analog clock. Easier to figure it out then they changed 45 to 40.

metal bats sound dumb

Worst rule in pro or college football is the only having to sit out one play if you are "injured"....I understand having to protect players and not discourage drawing attention to actual serious injury/scares/stingers what have you....but in college especially and creeping into the nfl is the ability of the team that has squandered timeouts/just doesn't want to use available timeouts is the rule where you can be attended to while laying on the field for 5-10 minutes because you are injured only to be back in play 2 plays later. That's a 10 minute timeout/commercial break in exchange for 1 player sitting out 1 play. 5 times as long as a normal timeout and relatively no penalty. If you are so "injured" you should have to sit the remainder of the half or if in the 2nd half the remainder of the game.

How would I solve tanking in the NFL? An actual Tank Bowl. The Saturday night before the Super Bowl, the lowest-ranked teams in the NFC and AFC play each other. Winner of this team gets the No. 1 draft pick, loser gets the 32nd 1st round pick as well as the “Mr. Irrelevant” last pick of the draft.

OMG ... decades later, I finally understand that joke in The Simpsons.

Perna, pls let us know where you get your random B roll footage, it’s gold

If the NFL won’t allow betting on other sports in team facilities, then the least teams can do is hire someone to glare at the players until they are off the facility. Then at that point the person smiles and gives the thumbs up.

Regarding the bats in College Baseball, in 2011 the NCAA came out with a a set of rules called BBCOR (BaseBall Coefficient of Restitution) due to pitcher safety. Under BBCOR rules the bats are deadened so that effectively the exit velocity of the ball off the bat is no greater than what it would be with a wooden bat. The weight is also the same as a wooden bat. They gives the “performance” of wood without requiring college teams to incur the larger costs of several wooden bats per player since the aluminum last so much longer. Now the pre-2011 BESR bats turned baseballs into absolute missies!

Perna with the new hair to try and impress Grossi.

The sound of a baseball coming off a metal bat is absolutely sickening... the sound of a ball coming off wood , absolutely divine.

I literally had to sit down from laughing so hard at the "decapitation station" comment...

Just eliminate kickoffs. Wait, they run A LOT of commercial$ before and after kickoffs.

I've been subbed to this channel for like 2 months to learn more about the NFL. But this guy is hilarious with his delivery especially with silly things like these rules.

Wooooaahhh. You pulled Northwestern State out of nowhere on the kickoff rule... Forkem. I was an assistant athletic trainer on the field at the game in that picture. We were getting killed by Texas A&M

Yeah, there's a lot of dumb sports rules; no argument from me. A really dumb one the NFL had which thankfully no longer exists is the 15-yard personal foul penalty punishing the player who just scored a touchdown for quote "going to the ground after the score" endquote. This was most egregiously enforced on (former) Green Bay Packers free safety #36 Nick Collins in Super Bowl XLV [Q1] when he intercepted a pass from (former) Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback #7 Ben Roethlisberger, then ran and dove head-first into the endzone for the TD. He stood up, ran a short ways, and slid down on his knees in the endzone with his arms up in jubilation, facing the crowd of people. The yellow flags went flying for something so harmless on American football's biggest day (each year); Collins was embracing the moment and it wasn't even done in a taunting kind of way. Again, really dumb rule which used to exist, was universally reviled by almost all fans of all NFL teams, repealed in 2017, and hopefully is dead and buried forever, never to return. *Brandon Perna, you did great, sir. 👍 However, at 12:26 safety was mispelled.

As a KU basketball fan, it’s tough for me to agree on your last point. We won the 2008 National Championship from intentional fouling.

Tom Landry did that beard rule too

You're unfortunately wrong about the tennis one. Their opponents complaining was what got the disqualification. It's still a stupid rule but the ball girl doesn't deserve to get dragged.

I've never liked the offside rule in soccer. Of course, I barely like soccer, so my opinion doesnt carry much weight

Brandon “Gotta look my best for Tom Grossi” Perna

4:05 this is the most legendary thing I have never seen

Perna without a beard is a cursed image. We don’t ever wanna see that again

The tennis thing wasn't even an accident, you're expected to do what she did. It's literally happened millions of times. The only wrinkle is this girl used her face to catch the ball. That's a first.

Brandon Perna looks like the disciple of the Unabomber 😊

Sorry but if you fumble it out of the end zone why should you get it back? You loose it you loose it. Consequences.

I think TMac might want a word… lol

As a nascar fan, I hope they end unlimited overtime restarts. The “playoff” system needs to go as well.

I'm curious how the NFL finds out that players actually did sports betting inside facilities. Do they have informants at the sports betting places? Do they use the time of those bets and then take video footage from the facilities to see if said players actually made bets while on team facilities and not outside in the parking lot? I mean jesus that's a lot of effort to go through to bust a guy who bet on a baseball game.

My theory about kickoffs is there is some nfl agent who represents most of the kickers and he is continuously whispering in the NFL execs ears that if they make kickoffs safer they can expand the season another game.

Pause at 4:08. Mickey mantle’s description of the BJ is hilarious

This video has serious Old Man Yells at Clouds vibes.

The NFL'S control of the ball after the catch rule sucks. Things that are obviously catches suddenly require endless analysis.

My flight got cancelled and I’m stuck in another country. Thanks for timing this so well.

The pitch clock in major leauge baseball. Also,if the game goes into extra innings a runner is at 2nd to start off the inning.

I'll go with the NBA's rule that you can advance the ball with a timeout in the final minute of the game. It would be like if the NFL decided to take the kickoff fair catch rule and make it so that after the 2 minute warning the receiving team got to move the ball to the opponent's 35 yard line. College men's basketball doesn't have this rule which is why Christian Laettner's game winner in 1992 against Kentucky was more exciting than any NBA buzzer beater, as he had to catch a 75 foot in-bound pass from Grant Hill rather than a 10 foot in-bound like MJ did with "The Shot". Well actually MLB's extra inning rule is even dumber than that.

The catchers violation rule in baseball definitely up there aka the buster posey rule

I hate the extra inning runner on second with all of my heart

Long have I hated the hack fest at the end of basketball games. It is perhaps the single most anticlimactic element in all of sports. I say give the points straight across for the fowl (2 or 3 point range) and the problem goes away.

The traveling rule in the NBA. Not that it exists, but the fact that I've seen players carry the ball from the arc all the way in for a layup without one dribble and no call. It's a joke and the NBA needs to either get itself together and call it, or admit they don't care and change the rule entirely

That every single jump shot in the NBA has their legs extended just to draw the foul

King of dumb rules: offside in soccer.

That tennis rule is ridiculous because you have one job as a ball boy/girl. Keep your eye on the game. If i hit someone out of bounds, how is it my fault? That person has a split second more allowed for reaction than my opponent.

What about 12 men on the field, when one is clearly making an exit?