Five years ago, Duke and Louisville entered into a contract to play four football games together over the next decade. After a 40-3 drubbing in September 2002, the Duke Athletic Department decided to renege on the deal, canceling the last three games. Part of the contract called for either team to pay a penalty of $150K per game if a "team of similar stature" could not be found to fill the date. Louisville sued Duke for $450K plus any and all applicable ancillary costs.
The trial hinged on the meaning of a "team of similar stature". In my opinion, a top-tier program like Louisville schedules a Duke to be a cupcake on their relatively hard Big East slate. Duke however, made the opposite argument. They stated that since the program is 6-45 over the past five years, literally any team in Division 1 would be a "team of similar stature". After arguments from the Duke lawyers laying the case that its team was the worst program in Division 1, the judge agreed:
"At oral argument, Duke (with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty) persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower. Duke's argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville."
Say what you will (and we can) about the big money issues of college football scheduling, I find it hilarious that Duke went to court to prove that their football team is horrible. I would love to see the transcript on this one.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3455278
