They say that if you are a reporter you never want to be the news yourself. For WESH Channel 2 multimedia journalist Zach Maskavich, that remains a battle in ways he certainly could not have predicted.
Super Bowl LV takes place in Tampa on Sunday, and reporters across the country are looking for unique angles in their coverage of the big game. Considering he works in nearby Orlando, Maskavich found his niche outside the Raymond James Stadium Friday and recorded some of the sounds coming from within. For example, he eventually posted a video of Jazmine Sullivan and Eric Church’s practice of the national anthem on his Twitter feed, clocking at two minutes and sixteen seconds.
Okay gamblers. Here is the timer for practicing the national anthem. 2:16 #SuperBowl #GoBucs #ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/CpJC4gHUPp
– Zach Maskavich (@ZachMaskavich) February 5, 2021
Considering that the length of the national anthem is a well-known bet for Super Bowl bettors every year, that’s pretty valuable information. And in terms of this year’s anthem, the over / under was around two minutes, depending on the oddsmakers, at the time Maskavich posted his video.
However, as soon as the video started making the rounds, those numbers started to change, per ESPN. With this useful information now available, bettors rushed to place bets with bookmakers such as Australian PointsBet, who had to stop betting due to overwhelming demand. Meanwhile, Pinnacle Sports of Curaçao had initially set the over / under at 1:58, with -110 odds to bet on both sides. Within hours of posting the video, the price rose to -1,500 before they finally had to stop gambling as well. This turned out to be the case for many other international oddsmakers as such bets are not legal in the US.
Maskavich, as you might imagine, started hearing about it from gamblers on Twitter.
“I just thought it was kind of funny,” Maskavich told ESPN. “Some of the responses were hilarious; some people are really angry.
“I felt like it was going to gain some traction leading up to the Super Bowl, and people liked prop bets. But I didn’t think it would explode like this. People contact me wondering if Vegas paid me for it, and all those other crazy things. “
Ariel is one of my best friends, she knows a lot more about the gambling industry than I do. But also, if for some reason my tweet CHANGED THE MATCH LANDSCAPE … I’m all for it https://t.co/GhCwEyfje5
– Zach Maskavich (@ZachMaskavich) February 6, 2021
Of course, a practice run is a practice run, so that doesn’t mean the actual national anthem will be clocking at that point on Sunday. But if you’re gambling nicely (for fun, of course) and someone who doesn’t know the video tries to excite you with a more / less than about two minutes (Demi Lovato clocked in at one minute and 49 seconds last year), you might have the benefit you were looking for.
Meanwhile, as we’ve said, national (or international) attention isn’t something entirely new to Maskavich. You may remember him thanks to an unfortunate moment during a high school football game in 2018 that landed him (and his crotch) on SportsCenter’s Not Top 10.
Never in my life would I have thought that @KeithOlbermann would tell me that I was beaten in the cross on national TV. But here we are # NotTop10 pic.twitter.com/zXyDK7c6AC
– Zach Maskavich (@ZachMaskavich) October 26, 2018
We look forward to seeing Zach go viral again sometime around 2024/2025. We’ll keep an eye on it.
[ESPN]