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Hardly anyone predicted that the Baltimore Ravens would hold the New England Patriots to 13 points and defeat them with relative ease in the AFC Championship Game, let alone correctly guess the score of the game. One lucky (or brilliant) fan did just that, and he is now $8,500 richer because of it.
On Sunday, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay tweeted that he would give away $8,500 cash to one of his followers who predicted the exact score of the Pats-Ravens game before kickoff. Irsay offered a one-point cushion on either side of the score, and a Colts fan named Jason predicted that Baltimore would win 27-14. The Ravens beat the Patriots, 28-13. On Monday, Jason shared his story on a Phish message board (Fluff Head is a reference to a Phish song) and posted the photo that you see above of the package Irsay sent him.
Jason wasn’t the only person to win a contest stemming from Irsay’s Twitter account on Sunday. The Colts owner also asked his followers to guess the winner of the NFC Championship Game between the San Francisco 49ers and Atlanta Falcons, the quarterback rating of the winning quarterback and the total score of the game. That contest was worth $2,000. He also gave away $500 to a follower who guessed who would win the Patriots-Ravens against the spread, which was New England -7. For any contest that had multiple winners, Irsay drew a name from a hat. It’s unclear if the other winners have received their prizes, but they did receive a congratulatory tweet from Irsay. Our guess is he paid up.
“I think (Irsay) is the best owner in the NFL,” Jason wrote on the forum.
Say what you will about Irsay and his love of tweeting (and himself), but that was one awesome Twitter giveaway. Can he afford it? Of course — he owns an NFL team. That doesn’t mean he has any obligation to going giving his fortune away to complete strangers. He’s probably the only owner that would do something like that.
H/T Deadspin
