MAGNETS?

Just an update: Magnets or not, this idea won me some cash during the Super Bowl:

This is a "sports conspiracy" website, right? So, let's get a little "out there."

A few years back, I talked to a former NBA ball boy. Without really asking for it, he offered up some interesting information. He told me that there were magnets in official NBA league basketballs, and that the rims were also magnetized. Though he claimed this mechanism existed to re-set the shot clock after a basket, he believed an off-court official could switch the rim on/off at his whim in order to pull in a shot, or possibly repel one.

I wrote this off (yeah, me, the "king of sports conspiracies") as being a bit far-fetched. But why couldn't it be possible? And if it were possible in the NBA, why not in NHL goals? Or FIFA goals? Or NFL goal posts? As long as something that reacts to a magnetic field could be placed inside the ball/puck, then the goals could be used to push/pull the potential score through the uprights or away from the net.

Is there proof of this? Um, yeah.

There's the Touchdown Magnet.  A football that sticks to your hands. A "tracking football" developed by the likes of North Carolina State University, Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research (the story which debuted in 2014, then completely disappeared, and according to the internet, never was discussed again).

And let's not forget what the NHL did a few years back:
Beyond that, all we have to go on are certain "oddities" which have been witnessed in the NFL, NHL, NBA and elsewhere. Take a look at the video evidence (as long as it exists) and make up your own mind.

Such as Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker's first-ever missed PAT. Does his expression look normal? Or does it look like he's witnessed something akin to a UFO? (Since the NFL won't allow me to embed the video on my site -- surprise, surprise -- here's the link to it so you can watch it yourself.

In the playoffs in 2021, Tucker again doinked not one, but two kicks off the uprights. While it was quite windy in Buffalo that night, one would think the wind would make it more unlikely that a kicker could hit the goal post. Yet, Tucker did it twice...which produced a similar reaction in him both times.

It's been a bit since I updated this page (as you can probably tell from the dead video links -- why were these specific videos pulled by YouTube anyway? Hmmm...). But here's an interesting one from the "London" game between the Dolphins and Jaguars in October of 2021. The Jags are the "unofficial" home team of England, fyi, which is why they may have been helped. The announcer, by the way, thought this kick was missed right away, and sounded shocked it curved back inside the goal posts to be good.

The famed "Magic Puck":
A new edition of the "magic puck" took place in a December 2019 NY Rangers v. Nashville Predators game:
Some basketball fun:
By the way, did you know you cannot keep a NBA ball if you catch one during a game? Nor can you keep the kicking ball in the NFL if it goes into the stands. A regular NFL ball, you can, but not the "K" ball.
Maybe the leagues don't even need magnets to conjure up their magic tricks....
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