ESPN Awards $1 Million to Lucky NFL Fan
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Although Samuel Louis-Charles is a native New Yorker, chances are the Pittsburgh Steelers are his favorite NFL team now. That’s because the Steelers’ Dec. 8 win over the Dallas Cowboys helped the 31-year-old UPS employee win $1 million through ESPN.com’s “Streak for the Cash” game.
The daily game, which was sponsored by Progressive Insurance and launched on Aug. 25 had users select the outcome of various sports games, with the winner walking away with a million-dollar prize for picking the correct winning team 25 times in a row. Louis-Charles picked the Steelers to defeat the Cowboys, a win that gave him his 25th consecutive win.
He admits that it was a win he didn’t think was going to happen for a minute when the Steelers were down by 10 points with only a few minutes left in the fourth quarter. “I was actually watching until there were only seven minutes left. I was thinking they were going to lose, so I left for work,” he tells rolling out.
In fact, he was so convinced that Dallas would win that he didn’t believe his own sister when she called to tell him the exciting news. “I didn’t believe her at all. I thought, ‘she doesn’t know what she’s talking about; she’s a girl. She doesn’t know football,” he laughs.
It wasn’t until he saw the score for himself that he realized he was the grand prize winner, but even then, he was doubtful. “My mom didn’t believe me. She warned me not to believe them [ESPN] because nothing in life is free,” Louis-Charles explains. “I kind of believed her but she ended up being wrong.”
Now that both he and his mom have been proven wrong, Louis-Charles now faces the task of figuring out what to do with his prize money. “I really don’t know yet; maybe I’ll fix up my credit,” he ponders.
John Kosner, SVP and GM of ESPN Digital Media, expressed his excitement about Louis-Charles’ exhilarating win. “We are thrilled Samuel Louis-Charles is our first million dollar winner in ‘Streak for the Cash.’ It takes a wealth of sports knowledge to pick 25 in a row, and a lot of skill and guts to do it while competing against a million other fans.” The response to the contest was so huge that ESPN announced that “Streak for the Cash II” will return in January 2009.
As for the lucky winner, he’s still getting adjusted to his win. “It’s really just starting to sink in. I’m just excited, overwhelmed, thrilled and shocked,” he says. “I was just playing for fun. Who knew I’d actually win?” –ivory m. jones
