Flagrant foul - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A flagrant foul is a serious contact foul involving unnecessary, excessive, or intentional contact in sport. There is a specific National Basketball Association

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

foul termed a flagrant foul.

NBA flagrant fouls

In basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

, a personal foul is a breach of the rules

Regulation of sport

The regulation of sport is usually done by a regulatory agency for each sport, resulting in a core of relatively invariant, agreed rules. People responsible for leisure activities often seek recognition and respectability as sports by joining sports federations such as the International Olympic...

that concerns illegal personal contact with an opponent. The NBA flagrant foul rule was enacted in the 1990s as an attempt to deter contact which, in addition to being against the rules, puts an opponent's safety and health at risk. The terminology in the NBA rulebook for contact that puts safety and health at risk is unnecessary and/or excessive contact.

Fines associated with flagrant fouls

Over the course of the season, flagrant fouls include increasingly steep monetary fines at the sole discretion of the Commissioner and possible suspension.

Flagrant fouls and game tactics

Within a game, the presence of the flagrant foul rule helps to deter undesired play (usually as the game winds down) by awarding possession of the ball as an extra penalty. A simple personal foul or intentional foul will generally result in either free throws or possession of the ball depending on the number of accumulated team fouls at the end of the game. However, a flagrant foul will result in both the award of free throws and subsequent possession. Thus, when a trailing team is employing a tactic of slowing the game down by fouling, it must be careful not to use unnecessary or excessive contact, even though such fouls are intentional by definition, or it will give its opponent both free throws and the ball back and defeat its own tactic.

FIBA rules

FIBA basketball rules have a similar foul called an unsportsmanlike foul, which is roughly equivalent to a flagrant type 1, with the addition that an unsportsmanlike foul can be called if a player fouls with no intention to play the ball, as well as if a player fouls another player on a fast break from behind him. If a player commits a foul warranting immediate ejection from the game, the foul would be called as a disqualifying foul - similar to a flagrant 2. Two unsportsmanlike fouls lead to automatic ejection, similar to the NBA.

The penalty for an unsportsmanlike or disqualifying foul is two free throws and possession at midcourt for the opposing team. If a player is disqualified for two unsportsmanlike fouls, there is no additional penalty for the disqualification: only the second unsportsmanlike foul is punished, just like the NBA.

NCAA and NFHS basketball rules

NCAA (college) and NFHS (U.S. high school) rules define a flagrant foul as a personal or technical foul that is extreme or severe.

A flagrant personal foul (or intentional foul) involves excessive or severe contact during a live ball.
A flagrant technical foul involves unsportsmanlike conduct that is extreme in nature, or excessive or severe contact during a dead ball. Fighting is also considered a flagrant technical foul.

The penalty for a flagrant foul in NCAA and NFHS rules is immediate ejection of the offending player, plus two free throws and a throw-in for the opposing team. The ejected player is also suspended during the next game played by his or her team.

For a flagrant personal foul (or intentional foul), the throw-in spot is at the out-of-bounds spot nearest the foul.
For a flagrant technical foul
Technical foul
In basketball, a technical foul is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between players on the court, or is a foul by a non-player. The most common technical foul is for unsportsmanlike conduct...

, the throw-in spot is at the division line opposite the scorer's table.

Other sports

A flagrant foul is a general term in sports that refers to an intentional or excessive foul. Many sports have two levels of flagrant fouls. In American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

, such fouls generally result in an unsportsmanlike conduct

Unsportsmanlike conduct

Unsportsmanlike conduct is a foul or offense in many sports that is not necessarily a violation of the respective sport's rules of play, but violates the sport's generally accepted rules of sportsmanship and/or participant conduct...

penalty and possibly ejection. In soccer

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

, such fouls generally result in either a yellow card or a red card being issued. In ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

, such fouls sometimes result in a boarding

Boarding (ice hockey)

Boarding in ice hockey is a penalty called when an offending player violently pushes or checks an opposing player into the boards of the hockey rink. The boarding call is quite often a major penalty due to the likelihood of injury sustained by the player who was boarded, and officials have the...