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How a slow Windows software update punished a German basketball team

Published Mar 27th, 2015 9:30AM EDT
Windows Software Update
Image: Microsoft

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There’s a hilarious story coming out of Germany which relays how a slow Windows software update ended up relegating a German basketball team to a lower tiered league.

A quick backdrop: It’s common across some European sports leagues to move under-performing teams to lower tiered divisions. As a quick analogy, it’d be akin to the New York Knicks being demoted to the NBA D-league for having the worst record in the NBA.

That said, here’s what recently went down in the German ProB basketball league.

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In the final game of the season, a German basketball club named BV Chemnitz 99 played against a team called Paderborn. The match, scheduled to start at 7:30 PM, was delayed for a bit because the PC laptop that controlled the scoreboard and the shotclock crashed. Upon restarting, the computer began downloading a Windows software update. Thinking that the update would just take a few minutes, the officials decided to wait it out. Next thing you know, the officials were forced to wait… wait… and wait some more for the software to download. Eventually, the game began at 7:55, nearly 25 minutes later than scheduled.

As for the game itself, BV Chemnitz ended up losing by a few points. Not content with the outcome, BV Chemnitz decided exploit a loophole in the league’s rules.

Reddit user zombiejh explains what happened next:

But Chemnitz protested afterwards because when a game is not started 15 minutes after sheduled time (which in this case it didn’t, it started 25 minutes late) the away team can protest and the league has to investigate. For this match they ruled that the hometeam (Paderborn) did not act fast enough to get replacement scoreboards.

Paderborn got withdrawn the points they won (for every win you get two points in the table) and is now getting relegated instead of Chemnitz altough they won the match.

Now for all we know a slow Internet connection was the true culprit, but it’s still funny, regardless, that a slower than molasses Windows software update was the root cause behind a German basketball team being relegated to a lower division.

Yoni Heisler Contributing Writer

Yoni Heisler has been writing about Apple and the tech industry at large with over 15 years of experience. A life long expert Mac user and Apple expert, his writing has appeared in Edible Apple, Network World, MacLife, Macworld UK, and TUAW.

When not analyzing the latest happenings with Apple, Yoni enjoys catching Improv shows in Chicago, playing soccer, and cultivating new TV show addictions.