History ObviousRulePatch / Sports

** The "Minneapolis Miracle" occurred in 2018 when the Minnesota Vikings, down 24-23, scored a touchdown against the New Orleans Saints on the final play of the game to go ahead 29-24. It took ten minutes for the game to actually end after the touchdown was scored, as the rules stated that an extra-point attempt had to be made, even though it wouldn't have affected the outcome. A few Saints players wandered back onto the field, and the Vikings has to clear the field of debris and fans, after which the quarterback just immediately took a knee anyways. The rule was changed the following season so that, if a team scores a go-ahead touchdown on the last play of regulation, the game immediately ends.

** The "Minneapolis Miracle" occurred in 2018 when the Minnesota Vikings, down 24-23, scored a touchdown against the New Orleans Saints on the final play of the game to go ahead 29-24. It took ten minutes for the game to actually end after the touchdown was scored, as the rules stated that an extra-point attempt had to be made, even though it wouldn't have affected the outcome. A few Saints players wandered back onto the field, and the Vikings has to clear the field of debris and fans. The rule was changed the following season so that, if a team scores a go-ahead touchdown on the last play of regulation, the game immediately ends.

*** The "Jean Béliveau rule" states that if a team scores on a two-minute power play, the penalized player is allowed to leave and the power play ends. It's named after Jean Béliveau, Montreal Canadiens superstar who (along with his teammates) would routinely victimize opponents who took penalties by scoring two or three goals in the same power play. The five-minute major penalty (for only the most {{egregious}} of fouls) still allows teams to score at will while the full five minutes are served.

** In 1977, the NFL implemented the '''Tom Dempsey Rule''', requiring that players with artificial legs must wear shoes that conform to the shape of a natural foot. This was because Tom Dempsey had no toes on his right foot and wore a custom shoe that essentially turned his kicking leg into a hammer, giving him the ability kick with distance and accuracy that no other kicker in the league to replicate. Dempsey retired soon after the rule's implementation.

** Dennis Lillee's [[SarcasmMode heroics]] with an ''[[LoopholeAbuse aluminium]]'' bat led to the rule: "The bat shall be made of wood".

* In RugbyUnion, the rule that a temporary substitute cannot kick for goal was added after [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodgate the Bloodgate scandal]], in which a fake injury was used to get a kicker on the field.

*** '''Hines Ward Rule''': Blocking rules were implemented to keep players from murdering people with blindside blocks to the upper chest/head area after Hines Ward racked up an impressive body count doing this, including knocking Ravens safety Ed Reed out cold and breaking the jaw of Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers in the seventh game of the season.

** It should be noted that a lot of obvious rules patches are put in simply to increase driver safety in a sport where it once held very true that AnyoneCanDie.

* Game Show Network's ''Extreme Dodgeball'' had a rule amendment only minutes after the exploit occurred. A rule to prevent delay of game would cause a team to automatically lose a player if they had both balls on their side of the court for a given (brief) length of time. David Benedetto placed both balls on edge of the opposing team's side. Thus, the players had to move forward to retrieve the balls, at which point Benedetto could easily pick up a ball without crossing the line and nail them. An all-purpose patch named the "Benedetto Amendment" was placed to prevent any players abusing delay-of-game rules to their own benefit.

* In [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball American college football]], the NCAA added a rule for the 2011 season dictating that if a penalty occurs during the final minute of the half, the clock is run down for 10 seconds if the affected team doesn't take a time out. This came in response to an incident at the 2010 Music City Bowl between North Carolina and Tennessee, where in an act of desperation to get a game-tying field goal, North Carolina sloppily brought six extra players onto the field and "spiked" the ball, causing the clock to stop at one second on the ensuing penalty (they would get the field goal and win in double overtime). Fittingly, the first team to have this new rule used against them in the 2011 season was North Carolina.
** There are also obvious rule patch that are not so much about preventing game-breakers as about preventing injuries or deaths that resulted when they were used. For example, American Football banning the use of the ''flying wedge'' formation in 1894.

* Beginning in the 2016-17 season; [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation the NBA]] introduced new rules stating that any "away from the ball" foul committed in the last two minutes of a period or overtime would not only result in the fouled team not only having a free-throw opportunity but would allow them to retain possession; an attempt to curtail intentional fouls committed against a team's worst free-throw shooter (most famously being known as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack-a-Shaq Hack-a-Shaq]] strategy in which opposing teams targeted Hall-of-Fame center Shaquille O'Neal, knowing that Shaq was a poor free-throw shooter[[note]]with a career average of around 52.7% from the charity stripe[[/note]]).

*** The "Matt Cooke rule" (also referred to as "Rule 48" for lack of a snappier term) prevents players from throwing checks that targeted the head. While many players had reputations for delivering punishing blows of this type, they were mostly celebrated; when fans started to realize how dangerous concussions and head injuries could be, they became the hallmark of a cheap-shot artist. Matt Cooke had the misfortune of throwing such hits during this time, one of which ended Marc Savard's career.
*** The "Rob Ray rule" requires players' jerseys to be tied to a player's pants to prevent them from coming off easily during a fight. In the 80s and 90s, pugilists frequently wore baggy jerseys that would come off easily and in a fight and give their opponents nothing to grab on to; Rob Ray is considered to have pioneered the technique.

* Cricket:

* Basketball:

** The IOC's ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_the_eagle#The_Eddie_.22The_Eagle.22_Rule Eddie "The Eagle" rule]]''.

*** Before that, in the 70s, the NFL had to make new pass interference rules, dubbed the Mel Blount Rule, to stop defensive backs, most notably Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Mel Blount, from mugging opposing receivers five yards past the line of scrimmage.
*** Likewise, blocking rules were implemented to keep players (read: Steelers WR Hines Ward) from murdering people with blindside blocks to the upper chest/head area after Hines Ward racked up an impressive body count doing this, including knocking Ravens safety Ed Reed out cold and breaking the jaw of Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers in the seventh game of the season.
** Besides the Hines Ward Rule listed above, the NFL would ban certain types of hits to reduce the amount of injuries to players:

* Olympic Fencing descends from duels fought with [[UsefulNotes/{{Swords}} smallswords, rapiers, and sabers]]. While sabers have a cutting edge (they were used from horseback as late as the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar), smallswords and rapiers are both pure thrusting weapons which are almost never used to slash and only really have sharpened edges to make BarehandedBladeBlock attempts impractical. Traditionally, touches are delivered by a clean thrust which depresses a button on the weapon's tip, causing a circuit to complete and a scoring light to flare. Due to the exceptional flexibility of fencing swords, sportsmen learned to "flick," or snap the weapon in a manner which caused the blade to bend around an opponent's guard and touch with the tip. The flick looks nothing like a traditional sword technique. Flicks became so dominant, especially in foil, that many fencers started calling it a "flick-fest." The sport's governing body, the FIE, patched timing rules on how long the button has to be depressed before it counts to make flicks much less viable. ''Most'' fencers consider this a good thing. Saber fencers still have a whip-over, where an electrified saber's long blade can bend and touch an opponent. Since sabers are electrified over the whole length, this means an attack which would not cut with an actual saber can still establish contact with the opponent and score a point in competition. Sabreurs are divided over whether whip-overs improve the game or not and referees have a hard time making calls on them. Was it a whip-over, an unsuccessful parry, or a remise? Good luck calling that action when it takes place in a fraction of a second. In 2000, new regulations made sabre blades much stiffer to reduce this, but it can still happen. Nowadays the FIE seems to be moving towards "if the circuit was completed, it counts."

* The UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} rules committee instituted the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infield_Fly_Rule Infield Fly Rule]] in 1895 to block a specific GameBreaker in which an infielder would let a fly ball drop and go for the easy double play (or, should the runner choose to run, catch the fly ball and throw the runner out before he could tag up for an equally easy double play) instead of just getting the one out that would normally result.

* The England cricket team of the 1930s discovered "Bodyline"—a tactic where instead of aiming for the stumps, the bowler just pitched lots of very fast, painful balls at the batter's body, forcing him to move out of the way or deflect the ball towards nearby fielders. As a result several new rules were brought in, restricting the number of aggressive balls allowed per over and the positioning of fielders.

** Common patch rules have been to force both teams to attempt to score rather than just stall. Football's downs system dates from the 1880s or so (look up the "block game"), pro basketball got the shot clock in 1954 after an infamously stalled game (when the Fort Wayne Pistons outlasted the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 in a 1950 NBA game; the teams scored just four points ''total'' in the final quarter). Few such measures have been really successful in association football. In league play, making a win worth 3 points rather than 2 (a draw being worth 1), the change being made in 1981 in the (English) Football League. In knock-out tournaments, using the "Golden Goal" in extra time, where the first goal scored ends the match, had the opposite effect; it ended up encouraging defensive play to avoid conceding a match-losing goal.
* UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball has the back-pass rule. FIFA introduced it in 1992 to keep players from passing the ball back to their goalkeeper and grabbing the ball to waste time. It was supposedly put in place because the 1990 World Cup was full of boring time-wasting.

** Similarly, the IOC's ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_the_eagle#The_Eddie_.22The_Eagle.22_Rule Eddie "The Eagle" rule]]''.

* Basketball is an egregious example.
** For one, early hoops lacked backboards. Backboards were created to not only make the shots a little easier, but to prevent fans on the balcony where the hoop was attached from interfering with the game by deflecting or guiding shots into the hoop. Plus, the boards were initially made from chicken wire, which caused the ball to stop dead in its tracks and [[GameBreaker fall into the hoop]].

** Also, in saber, the cross-forward move (in which the back foot crosses in front of the front one) is banned; it is permissible in both the other weapons, and was banned in saber to prevent the fencers always fleching at each other.

* ''Website/{{Cracked}}'''s [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20717_5-dumb-ways-people-have-won-at-sports.html 5 Dumb Ways People Have Won at Sports]] mentions a 1978 game where the Oakland Raiders abused the fumble rule to bounce-pass the football over and over all the way to the end zone, in an infamous play later called the "Holy Roller". Because the play took advantage of the fact that the officials couldn't determine whether the fumble was intentional or not[[note]]had it been considered an intentional fumble, it would have been called a forward pass because the ball initially travelled forward, and the play would have been dead[[/note]], the NFL added restrictions to advancing fumbles in the last two minutes of a half.

** The "two-line pass" rule was a previous pass that prevented teams from throwing long passes across the center red line and one of the blue lines. That rule was removed after the lockout to discourage the "neutral zone trap", which made use of trapping a player where he couldn't receive a pass.

* ''Website/{{Cracked}}'''s [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20717_5-dumb-ways-people-have-won-at-sports.html 5 Dumb Ways People Have Won at Sports]] mentions a 1978 game where the Oakland Raiders abused the fumble rule to bounce-pass the football over and over all the way to the end zone. The NFL quickly outlawed this "Holy Roller" tactic.

** In some situations, it reached absurd levels where you knew who would probably win before the match even started. In curling, if no points were scored in an end, the team that shot last shoots last again. A team that had a good peeling game, if they won the coin toss to shoot last in the first end, would simply blank end after end until the last one where they'd simply have to get the last rock of the game somewhere in the rings to win. For non-curling American football fans, imagine if the coin flip at the beginning of the Super Bowl basically decided who was going to win and the rest of the game was pointless.

** This was one case where technology forced the rule change: in the 1980s, ice-makers (generally Canadian) became very, very good at making ice surfaces that behaved in a much more predictable manner than before, allowing greater consistency in shooting and not needing as much force to throw the rock, thus allowing greater accuracy. The "peel game" developed almost immediately.

** Another rule change that came about because of Wilt Chamberlain: He originally countered his abysmal free-throw shooting by taking advantage of the fact that at the time, players were allowed a running start so long as they didn't step across the free throw line. Wilt would therefore jump right before reaching the line and ''dunk his free throws''. The rule was quickly changed so that players aren't allowed to cross the free throw line ''at all'' before the ball hits the rim, instead of only being barred from touching the floor in front of the line.

* Ice hockey has an example of a rule change that corrected a problem resulting from a previous rule change. The two line-pass rule (a pass couldn't cross a team's blue line and the center line) was instituted to prevent quick passes to players hovering behind the other team's players for a clear breakaway. Teams eventually developed the "neutral zone trap" where defending players would check any player in position to receive a legal pass, forcing a player with the puck to either make an illegal pass (which would be whistled down and brought back) or carry it out himself. This slowed the game so much that in some leagues the rule was eliminated.
** Similarly, the "Icing" rule (teams cannot shoot the puck from their side of the ice to the other end, unless it's on goal) was added after teams would just get a lead and then keep slapping the puck down the ice to make the other team fetch. It remains valid, though, when your team is shorthanded from a penalty.
*** The icing rule was again modified in the NHL in 2005. Prior to that, teams who needed to change players but couldn't (usually because they were being pressured in their own end) would intentionally ice the puck to stop play and switch lines. The new rule prevents the offending team from making any changes until after the faceoff.
*** However, there still AintNoRule that says a team can't call timeout after an icing violation (though each team is only allowed one charged timeout per game). There is, however, a rule that states that no official (TV) timeouts shall be called after an icing violation.
** More obviously, the NHL has the Martin Brodeur and Sean Avery rules. When goalkeeper Martin Brodeur got so good at playing the puck from behind the net, trapezoids were created behind both nets; playing the puck behind the net outside these trapezoids was made arbitrarily illegal (a delay-of-game penalty) for goalies. When Sean Avery, a professional pest, spent one powerplay parked in front of none other than Brodeur waving his hands and stick in his face to block his vision, ''mere hours after the game'' it was illegal to face a goaltender you were screening.
*** Brodeur's constant clearing of the puck was made worse by his team's use of the Neutral Zone Trap, mentioned above. About the only way to reliable get through the trap was to skate the puck across the center line, immediately dump it into the corner of the offensive zone, and chase after it. Brodeur was fairly fleet footed for a goalie, and had a much shorter distance to go to get the puck, so he'd rush into the corner, get the puck, and flip it out of the zone before the other team could get there. This turned games into slow paced neutral zone slogs with very few shots on goal. The Two Line Pass rule was eliminated to nerf the trap, and those "no play" areas in the corners were to prevent the goalie from slowing the game down. Hence illegally touching the puck in those areas being called Delay of Game.
** There was a similar rule patch allowing the butterfly goalie style, as a goalie by the name of Clint Benedict would drop to his knees and assume a praying position (earning himself the nickname "Praying Benny"), as there was a rule stating that goalies were not allowed to drop to their knees to block shots. However, for some unknown reason, the referees didn't penalize him simply because he claimed he was praying (religious freedom, perhaps?) and his style became so widely successful, it is now the dominant goaltending stance in professional and collegiate hockey today.
*** Typically Benedict would skirt the rules by claiming that he fell to the ice unintentionally, either by flopping down whenever someone so much as lightly brushed by him or pretending his skates slipped on the ice.
** Go back to 1956, when a two-minute minor penalty meant two minutes of game time in the penalty box. When the Boston Bruins took two such penalties in a game against the Montreal Canadiens and Jean Béliveau scored three times during the advantage, it was a GameBreaker and the league changed the rule so that after one goal was scored, a minor penalty ends.
*** Major penalties, however, are five minutes of game time in the penalty box, regardless of the number of goals scored. This was kept knowing that it was a GameBreaker in order to both punish major penalties more harshly, and to discourage players from doing anything that might earn one. It's common for teams on a five-minute power play to score two or three goals, whereas it is very difficult to score while shorthanded, so a team that commits a major penalty (except for fighting, which is generally a major penalty to the same number of players on both teams, so no power play results) usually loses the game because of it.
** There's also the offsetting penalties rules change, which has gone back and forth. It used to be that two players sent off simultaneously for the same offense (usually fighting) resulted in four-on-four play for the time of the penalties. This was abused by the Edmonton Oilers, who used famed instigator Marty [=McSorley=] to lure other players into fights, get matching penalties, and the resulting four-on-four would give plenty of room for Wayne "The Great One" Gretzky to score. To prevent this level of abuse, offsetting penalties would not result in a four-on-four situation (until years later, when the NHL wanted to boost scoring). They also added an instigator penalty, so rather than an even-numbered situation, the instigating team would be on the penalty kill instead.
** Goalies are no longer allowed to be captains or alternate captains in most leagues (or, if they are, it is an unofficial or ceremonial title with the actual on-ice duties of a captain being filled by another player). This is because the captains and alternate captains are the only players allowed to discuss penalties/rules interpretations with the referees and Montreal Canadiens goalie Bill Durnan (the last NHL goalie to ever be named captain) would take his time skating to and from the goal crease to confer with the referees, granting his team de-facto extra timeouts.
** An odd example of an off-ice rules patch: the 2004/2005 NHL lockout eventually saw the introduction of a salary cap, where each team could only spend a certain amount of money on their players' salaries (implemented to make sure small-market teams, like many of the Southern US teams, remained competitive with financial heavyweights like the Canadian teams). Good in theory, except that while a player could be paid any amount in a given year, their salary cap hit was always the average value of their contract price (so a player paid 10 million one year and 2 million the next would have a cap hit of 6 million for both years). Unfortunately, the NHL didn't spot a rather obvious loophole, as there were no stipulations on contract length. As such, teams almost immediately began signing players to "front-loaded" contracts that saw them paid huge amounts of money in the first few years, followed by a drop off to almost no money in the last few years of the deal. The final years of the deal would lower the average value of the contract and, thus, the cap hit and the player would usually retire before those years ever kicked in. As such, the players still got huge salaries while the teams got to keep their cap hits low and everyone was happy... except the NHL, who not only set a maximum contract length following the 2012 lockout, they also introduced a new "Cap Recapture" rule that retroactively punishes teams who signed front-loaded contracts if the players retire early.
*** There were plenty of blatant cap-circumvention deals signed while this sort of thing was legal, but special mention goes to Ilya Kovalchuk (signed to a 15 year deal that lasted until he was 42, in a league where it's rare to see players play past their mid-30s, with the salary sharply dropping in the last 6 years of the deal) and Roberto Luongo (signed until he's 43, with salary dropping to almost nothing for the last 4 years of the deal).
** Hockey fans began taking an increasingly dim view of dangerous hits to the head in the mid-to-late-2000s after several prominent players had their careers derailed or ended by concussions and prominent research began to highlight the long-term dangers of repeated blows to the head. The NHL seemed content to wait for things to blow over... until the league's marquee player, Sidney Crosby, was hit with a devastating - but, at the time, completely legal - hit to the head that knocked him out of the game for almost a year and a half. Unsurprisingly, the following season saw the rules around hits to the head and concussions tightened considerably.
** How ties and overtime have been handled in the NHL has become a series of increasingly patchwork rules. Traditionally, if the game was tied at the end of regulation, it either ended in a draw or went to sudden death, where the next goal wins. The NHL followed the former format until 1983, when it instituted a 5-minute sudden death overtime period; if the game was still tied afterwards, it was recorded as a tie and each team got a point in the standings (whereas a win was worth two points and a loss was worth none). However, in the late 90s teams began to play very defensively in overtime, reasoning that it was better to play it safe and walk away with one point than gamble and risk going home with none. This led to an increase in the number of ties and, concordantly, in fan dissatisfaction. The NHL attempted a rules patch by making overtime 4-on-4 and guaranteeing the extra point to both teams that made overtime (effectively meaning that a team that won in overtime would get an extra point). The intended patch was only marginally successful; while overtime scoring increased, teams now just played defensively in the minutes leading up to overtime instead, so that they'd guarantee themselves at least one point. The NHL changed the rules again in 2004, eliminating ties and introducing a shootout at the end of overtime; bizarrely, the rule that gives teams an automatic point for reaching overtime remains, even though its justification has now been nixed from the game. Beginning in the 2015-16 season, overtime is now 3-on-3.
** Enforcers in the 80s and 90s frequently wore loose-fitting jerseys so that they could shed them in a fight (thus leaving their opponents with nothing to grab onto and giving them a significant advantage). Sabres enforcer Rob Ray is generally considered the worst offender for this concept. The NHL eventually mandated that jerseys had to be tied down to a player's pants and any player found without a properly tied jersey now gets an automatic game misconduct.