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A Purdue student seemingly kicked off his junior year with a bang by winning a free two-year car lease in a field goal contest during the team’s season opener, but things took a very unfortunate turn after the dealership behind the promotion wriggled its way out of the deal on a technicality.
If you attend a sporting event on a college campus, there’s a solid chance you’ll see a student plucked out of the stands to participate in a contest with free food, tuition, or some other kind of prize on the line.
That was the case for the close to 60,000 fans who packed into Ross-Ade Stadium on August 31st to watch the Purdue Boilermakers kick off the 2024 football season by cruising to a 49-0 victory over Indiana State.
During the contest, a farm management major named Zachary Spangler was selected to participate in the “Kicks for Cash” contest sponsored by Bob Rohrman Honda, which gives participants the chance to win money if they can hit a 20-yard or 30-yard field goal along with the promise of a two-year car lease if they’re able to drill one from 40 yards out.
According to The Exponent, Spangler secured $250 in Visa gift cards after hitting kicks from 20 and 30 yards but only had the chance to attempt one from the final distance as the clock was winding down. He thankfully took full advantage of that final opportunity, as the ball split the uprights to seemingly seal the deal.
However, the same outlet reports things took a turn last Thursday when Spangler received an email from the dealership along with a video containing multiple angles of the 40-yard kick that purportedly left his foot .05 seconds too late, which the sponsor (and the insurance company underwriting the contest) used to justify its decision to inform him he wouldn’t be receiving a free lease after all.
It would appear the insurance company is the primary culprit here, as those entities have a history of doing everything in their power to avoid paying out a claim (there have been similar stories involving half-court shots and hole-in-ones at golf tournaments).
With that said, Bob Rohrman Honda (the arm of the auto group founded by the late Purdue superfan whose family donated $15 million to Purdue Athletics in 2019 and saw the gridiron dubbed”Rohrman Field” in their honor) has conducted a masterclass in disastrous public relations.
The dealership not only passed on the chance to score some free and positive publicity by saying it would still give Spangler the lease even if he technically came up short but decided to highlight the fact that it didn’t in a Facebook post that was deleted thanks to the backlash it was greeted with.
Bob Rohrman doubling down and using it as advertisement is legitimately wild pic.twitter.com/toJ9c4P3GF
— Dustin Schutte (@SchutteDustin) September 9, 2024
To make matters even worse, Curry Auto Center in Bloomington seized on the opportunity to get some free publicity of its own by pledging to give Spangler a two-year lease on a Chevy Blazer on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Rohrman Automotive Group announced it had decided to reverse course by offering to honor the prize while giving Spangler the option to accept a $5,000 cash prize instead (he opted for the latter) and donating the same sum to the student section organization known as “The Ross-Ade Brigade.”
At least things worked out in the end.