Is Damarious Randall legally bound by his 'Jersey Promise' if Cavaliers win the NBA Finals?
Cleveland Browns' new safety Damarious Randall made a very expensive public offer on his Twitter handle.
The 25-year-old NFLer tweeted stating that he promises to give every person who 'Re-tweets' his post, a jersey if Cleveland Cavaliers wins the NBA Finals.
Now, the tweet has gone viral with more than 900,000 'Re-tweets', If the NFLer fails to fulfil his promise, the internet is going to be very disappointed.
This feature looks into the legal nuances of Randall's promise and the possible aftermaths.
Consider the fact that an NFL jersey costs around 100 Dollars and an NBA jersey costs 110 Dollars in the Nike store. And one jersey for all 900,000 Re-tweeters makes it more than $80 million worth of jerseys.
He should have made around $10-million so far in his pro career, which is not nearly enough to purchase so many jerseys.
Unless he plans to surprise the people with a low-grade sports jersey, he is going to be the next broke athlete if the Cavaliers win this season.
He can file for bankruptcy while still playing in the NFL, although I don't think there is a single person in the world who would sue him if Cavaliers manage to win.
Contractual agreements have traditionally been analyzed in terms of offer and acceptance. One party, the offeror, makes an offer which once accepted by another party, the offeree, creates a binding contract.
In order for any agreement to be deemed legally binding, it must also include a valid consideration on the part of every person who enters the contract. Consideration of the contract must be a believable concept.
Randall's tweet is an open standing offer to his followers and they have an option to accept it by providing him the consideration required, i.e a 're-tweet'.
Now the real question is does a 're-tweet' amount to a valid consideration? The American courts have no precedent to date. So, in order to deal with this contention, the meaning of the word 'Retweet' needs to be analyzed.
A retweet, in essence, brings the contents of the original tweet into the immediate attention of the followers of the user who retweets. These actions can bring gratification and approval to the person who tweeted the original content.
Thus there exists a valid consideration for this online promise made by Randall, making it a legally enforcible contract.
The key to that problem lies entirely on how Cavaliers score against the Warriors. For that to happen, LeBron James, at age 33, needs to play the best series of his incredible career.
This is the first time in NBA history that two teams have met in four straight NBA Finals and the odds are clearly in favor of the Warriors this time.
But crazier things have happened in sports history, so let's hope that Randall lives by his word in case Cavaliers pull off the biggest upset in NBA history.