Mickey writes on behalf of a seventeen-year fantasy football league with a storied history of last-place punishments. Past losers have taken the SATs while residing in Singapore, documented weekends in sad Colorado Airbnbs, completed Tough Mudders dressed as the “God Squad” from The Righteous Gemstones, and drawn caricatures of strangers in public parks. This is a league that takes its punishments seriously. Until now.
The 2024 season’s punishment required the last-place finisher to design and construct first-place and last-place trophies for the league. This is, by any measure, the easiest punishment in league history. No public humiliation. No physical exertion. No standardized testing in foreign countries. Just make some trophies. The delinquent has had approximately eleven months to complete this task. He has produced nothing. His excuse, offered at the draft, was that he is “over complicating it to make it cool.” Now, as Christmas approaches, this same delinquent has advanced to the championship game—and his league is out for blood.
We hold that championship eligibility provides no sanctuary from prior-season punishment obligations. The delinquent must complete both the trophy construction and, regardless of championship outcome, the current season’s loser punishment: Beef Week, during which the unfortunate soul consumes nothing but unseasoned ground beef for lunch and dinner for one entire week. Enforcement shall commence December 26, 2025, with ten-point daily deductions until the trophies are delivered.
I
The league’s punishment history establishes a culture of compliance and creative suffering. Taking the SATs as an adult living in Singapore represents genuine commitment to public embarrassment. Documenting a weekend in a desolate one-street Colorado town requires planning, travel, and extended discomfort. Running a Tough Mudder in religious-themed athletic wear combines physical punishment with spiritual commentary. These are substantial obligations that prior losers have honored.
Against this backdrop, trophy construction represents a marked leniency. As the petition acknowledges, the 2024 punishment was “pretty tame compared to the other ones.” We agree. Trophy construction requires no travel, no public performance, no athletic exertion, and no caloric restriction. The delinquent could walk into a craft store, purchase materials, and produce something acceptable in an afternoon. He has instead spent eleven months claiming to be “over complicating it” while producing nothing.
This Court confronted nearly identical facts in League v. Scott, 23-1009-1 (2023). There, a league member had the entire offseason to complete a mandatory combine video punishment—approximately twenty-five minutes of athletic performance—and failed to do so despite having months available. We held that the league could impose draft sanctions and emphasized that “leagues must enforce their punishments or the entire punishment system collapses.” We rated Scott’s punishment “a two and a half out of ten on the punishment scale.”
Trophy construction rates even lower. Scott’s combine required physical activity that some might find embarrassing or uncomfortable. Trophy construction requires only creativity and a trip to Michael’s. If Scott’s punishment warranted draft sanctions for non-compliance, the delinquent here faces even less excuse for his extended delinquency.
II
The league seeks guidance on immediate enforcement mechanisms. The commissioner initially proposed forty-point weekly deductions beginning in Week 1 of the 2026 season. Another league member suggested allowing volunteers to complete the punishment in exchange for the delinquent’s first-round draft pick. Mickey proposes requiring the delinquent to complete Beef Week regardless of championship outcome.
We endorse a multi-pronged enforcement approach. First, immediate daily point deductions. Second, dual punishment obligations. Third, prospective mechanisms for future delinquency.
On immediate enforcement: we recognize that championship week presents unique circumstances. The delinquent has advanced to the finals through legitimate competitive success. Imposing retroactive sanctions that would alter playoff results or remove him from championship contention seems excessive for what is, fundamentally, administrative non-compliance rather than competitive misconduct. But we also reject the notion that Christmas week provides perpetual sanctuary from consequences. The delinquent has had fifty-one weeks. He can spare the four days between December 26 and the championship matchup.
Beginning December 26, 2025, the league shall deduct ten points per day from the delinquent’s championship score until the trophies are delivered. This gives him four days to complete an obligation he has had eleven months to fulfill. If he cannot produce trophies by Sunday—walk into a craft store, buy some materials, slap something together—then he faces the consequences of his own choices. As we observed in League v. Scott, “Scott, get off the couch. Film the combine. It will take 25 minutes.” The same logic applies here with even greater force. Go to Goodwill if necessary. Buy some trophies. It takes ten minutes.
We acknowledge Justice Horlbeck’s initial concern that “it’s the holidays” and that meddling with championship week feels harsh. But the holidays have lasted eleven months for the delinquent. He has enjoyed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, summer vacation, and countless weekends during which trophy construction was available to him. The fact that enforcement finally arrives during a busy period is entirely of his own making. These rules, as Chief Justice Heifetz observed, “aren’t designed to be convenient.”
III
We turn to the dual-punishment principle. Mickey proposes that even if the delinquent wins the championship, he should be required to complete Beef Week—the 2025 loser punishment—in addition to constructing the trophies. We agree.
The alternative outcome is absurd: a league champion who owes his league both trophies and humiliating beef consumption, strutting about with bragging rights while his obligations go unfulfilled. Championship victory would compound the injustice rather than resolve it. The league would enter the 2026 season with their champion still delinquent on multiple fronts, his credibility as a competitive participant undermined by his refusal to honor the social contract that makes punishment systems work.
Our holding in In re League Punishment Eligibility Standards, 24-0850-3 (2024), supports this dual-trigger approach. There, we established that punishment eligibility could operate through multiple independent mechanisms—the dead-last regular season finisher and the toilet bowl loser both qualifying for punishment. If a single manager met both criteria, he faced the punishment alone, “handcuffed to himself for twelve hours.” The principle is that meeting multiple punishment criteria does not provide escape; it compounds obligations.
The delinquent here has created his own dual-trigger situation. He owes trophies from 2024. If he loses the championship, he would owe Beef Week from 2025. But his potential championship victory should not extinguish the cumulative weight of his delinquency. He has demonstrated contempt for the punishment system through eleven months of inaction. Beef Week—consuming nothing but unseasoned ground beef for lunch and dinner for seven days—serves both punitive and deterrent purposes. It reminds him that championship success does not erase prior failures, and it warns future league members that delaying punishment obligations creates escalating consequences rather than providing escape.
We acknowledge that some may view this as harsh. Unseasoned ground beef for a week is genuinely unpleasant. But as we noted in In re Hot Ones Audition Tape Punishment, 25-1395-1 (2025), punishments must be “genuinely unpleasant rather than merely performative.” A punishment system that can be evaded through procrastination and eventual success is no system at all. The delinquent’s path to relief was clear: make the trophies sometime during the past eleven months. He chose otherwise.
IV
For prospective enforcement, we endorse the commissioner’s proposed framework with modifications. Beginning in the 2026 season, league members who fail to complete their punishment obligations face forty-point weekly deductions for each unfulfilled obligation. A manager owing both trophies and Beef Week would face eighty points in weekly deductions—functionally an automatic loss every week until compliance.
This mechanism serves the principle we articulated in League v. Scott: punishment systems work only when consequences are certain and meaningful. “If the league grants an extension now… it establishes the precedent that loser punishments are optional. Future last-place finishers will point to [the extension] as justification for their own delays.” The forty-point weekly deduction makes procrastination competitively catastrophic. No rational manager would allow such deductions to accumulate when the alternative—completing the punishment—remains available.
We also approve the alternative mechanism allowing another league member to assume the punishment obligation in exchange for the delinquent’s first-round draft pick. This represents elegant market-based enforcement. If the delinquent truly cannot or will not complete his obligations, he may outsource them—but at significant competitive cost. The volunteer receives fair compensation for their efforts. The league receives completed punishments. The delinquent pays for his delinquency through diminished draft position. Everyone’s incentives align toward resolution.
This mechanism should be subject to a deadline—perhaps six weeks after the regular season concludes—to prevent indefinite delays. After that deadline, another league member may unilaterally complete the punishment and claim the first-round pick without further negotiation. The delinquent loses both his pick and his ability to influence how the punishment is completed. This creates powerful incentives for timely self-completion.
* * *
Mickey’s league has maintained a proud tradition of creative punishment and mutual accountability for seventeen seasons. That tradition now faces its greatest test. The delinquent has demonstrated through eleven months of inaction that he believes himself exempt from the obligations his predecessors have honored. Taking the SATs in Singapore. Documenting sad Colorado weekends. Running obstacle courses in religious costumes. Drawing strangers in parks. All of these were completed by prior losers who understood that finishing last carries consequences.
The delinquent owes his league trophies. He may soon owe them Beef Week as well. These obligations do not disappear because he has advanced to the championship game. They do not soften because Christmas has arrived. They compound, as all debts do when left unpaid.
Beginning December 26, 2025, ten points per day shall be deducted until the trophies are delivered. If the delinquent wins the championship while still delinquent, he shall complete Beef Week in addition to trophy construction. For the 2026 season and beyond, forty-point weekly deductions apply to each unfulfilled punishment obligation. The first-round pick alternative is approved as a market mechanism for resolving intractable delinquency.
The league’s punishment system survives. Now someone needs to make those trophies.
Petition granted. Enforcement mechanisms approved as specified.