Breakaway basketball rim invented by Arthur Ehrat
Object Details
- patentee
- Ehrat, Arthur
- Ehrat, Arthur
- Description (Brief)
- Orange metal basketball rim with a white nylon net attached to the rim hooks. There is a large metal spring, taken from a John Deere tractor, located at the bottom of the rim and attached to a metal plate under the rim. This was to give the rim spring when someone hung on the edge of the rim or actually "break" the rim away for the basket but not cause the metal to give and break off. Before this invention the metal rims would break if too much weight was applied. This is a prototype for the design and construction of the breakaway rim made by the donor Arthur Ehrat in 1976. He applied for a patent in 1976 and was granted one for this design in December of 1982, patent number 4,365,802. There are 2 spare spring coils, one nut and one piece of metal.
- Arthur Ehrat – farmer, grain elevator manager, and inventor -- spent most evenings tinkering in his farm workshop in Virden, IL. There, in 1976, unfolded a classic tale of invention arising out of personal interest and of the development of a commercially successful sports product.
- Although not a basketball fan, Ehrat was a problem solver. Responding to the St. Louis University basketball coach - his nephew Randy Albrecht – lamenting about his players bending rims and injuring themselves, Ehrat went to work resolving this long standing predicament. He bought an inexpensive rim and experimented using familiar farm equipment and parts. Strong magnets would hold the rim up but allow it to fold down under pressure. Coil springs from John Deere field cultivators proved to have just enough tension to bounce the rim back up. He put the pieces together and tried his new breakaway basketball goal at local schools. Success was immediate. Filing for a patent in 1976, it took him six years to become the grantee of United States Patent # 4,365,802. Soon after, the basketball governing board changed its rules to allow the use of the breakaway rim and Ehrat licensed his invention to several companies. The breakaway rim became the standard of the sport from school yards to the NBA. As often happens, several other inventors also applied for similar patents soon after Ehrat. Although several lawsuits proved his originality, he said that the legal battles drained his profits.
- Papers related to this and Ehrat’s farm implement inventions reside in the National Museum of American History Archives Center.
- Credit Line
- Arthur Ehrat
- 1976
- ID Number
- 2005.0213.01
- accession number
- 2005.0213
- catalog number
- 2005.0213.01
- Object Name
- Basketball Rim
- breakaway rim, basketball
- Physical Description
- metal (overall material)
- nylon (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 19 in x 7 in x 24 1/2 in x 19 in; 48.26 cm x 17.78 cm x 62.23 cm x 48.26 cm
- See more items in
- Culture and the Arts: Sport and Leisure
- Exhibition
- Change Your Game
- Exhibition Location
- National Museum of American History
- National Museum of American History
- web subject
- Sports
- name of sport
- Basketball
- level of sport
- Professional
- collegiate
- web subject
- Invention
- Record ID
- nmah_1294158
- Metadata Usage (text)
- CC0
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746ab-c6fb-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
