As someone who plays fantasy football—as plenty of you guys do—the first thing that came to mind when I saw Antonio Brown catch a touchdown pass from Ben Roethlisberger with two seconds left was, “fuck, that sucks for whomever is matched up against him this week.”
Of course, then I freaked out and triple-checked that Brown wasn’t going up against me and was relieved when I saw he wasn’t.
The next thing I thought of was how the garbage score affected gamblers, as the point-spread at kickoff between the two teams had the Pats at +7, meaning there were plenty of people who probably threw more than just a remote at their TV when Brown hauled in the pass.
How did Antonio Brown’s garbage time TD last night affect gamblers? pic.twitter.com/aO0pn4AB17
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) September 11, 2015
“”Thanks to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, he gave me an answer, with an estimated $100 million in bets affected following the late score and extra point—causing a push on the spread and the Steelers to cover.
“That’ll make a couple of people happy.” — Al Michaels beautifully referencing the 7-8 point spread.
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) September 11, 2015
NBC commentators Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth may have joked about it being a great way to keep the TV audience engaged, but for those who tossed money on the over, they weren’t in the best of moods.