What do “a Florida man,” a Russian YouTube star and Super Bowl betting props have in common?
Plenty, it turns out.
When the fan escaped the seats, and then the security team, and reached the field during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl on Sunday, it injected a little life into what was a less-than-riveting championship game.
A restless social media community launched a discussion about “a streaker” being among the myriad Super Bowl prop bets available.
A day later, it was clear the fan’s sprint was not a spur-of-the-moment idea – and there probably was not any legitimate bookmaking company on the hook for the payout.
First, the idea of a potential wager; then, who was behind the stunt.
Patrick Everson, a senior writer for Las Vegas-based Covers.com, seemed to have a good grip on the sports-betting aspect of the late-game antics.
Everson wrote, in part: “A lot of hullaballoo today about the #SuperBowl streaker purportedly making a $50K bet at +750 that there would be a streaker during the game.”
Absent any proof to this point, it appears unlikely the gentleman on the field would have been able to make such a bet.
Everson cited a “global-market sportsbook spokesperson” as debunking the idea largely because of the amount rumored to have been wagered.
“No book in their right mind would take $50K limits on that,” Everson’s spokesperson is quoted as saying via Everson’s tweet thread. “Nowhere close. But even still, that would be a ton of bets/bettors. Say a book was dumb enough to post $1K limits on this. That's 50 bets all at once. Can't speak for any other book, but there is a reason our novelty props have limits from $10 to $100.
“We aren't looking to make much money off of them, but we definitely don't want to lose a ton and open ourselves up for any type of shadiness.”
In a later tweet, Everson quoted the source as saying, “IF this dude was able to get down $50K, I highly doubt it was one bet. Maybe a syndicate all betting lower limits at once?”
So you’re saying there’s a chance that there may have been action?
Got it.
The Super Bowl Stunt
The “Florida man” who ran on the field was identified as Yuri Andrade, 31.
Despite the questionable judgment in accepting the challenge to perform his stunt, Andrade showed some agility.
He made a nice cut-back move to elude his would-be captors at the 37-yard line, set his sights on the end zone and scampered down to the 1-yard line where, inexplicably, he executed a baseball slide and avoided the end zone.
He was then pummeled – officially, he was secured and detained – and led away.
The Boca Raton native was charged with misdemeanor trespassing following the incident.
He appears to have been the latest pawn in a series of stunts masterminded by Russian YouTube star Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, a shameless porn dabbler and self-promoter.
Zdorovetskiy has run onto the field himself during World Series and World Cup games, in addition to several run-ins with the law. A New York Post story detailed his arrest in April 2020 for assault on a female in Miami Beach.
Zdorovetskiy spent five days imprisoned in Egypt after his arrest for climbing the pyramids and, in 2016, was arrested for climbing the letter “D” on Los Angeles’ iconic Hollywood sign.
Zdorovetskiy gained further prominence at the 2019 Champions League final, when his then-girlfriend Kinsey Wolanski ran on the pitch in a swimsuit promoting Zdorovetskiy’s adult website.
Predictably, these things work well. Wolanski’s Instagram following soared from 230,000 to more than two million after the stunt.
She wrote on the social media site: "STREAKING THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE! Life is for living, do crazy things that you will remember forever."
But the gene pool runs deep. Later that month, Zdorovetskiy’s mother, Elena, tried to do the same thing at the Cricket World Cup final in London but barely reached the field before being tackled by security guards.
Nice to have that kind of support from family.
With more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube, Zdorovetskiy is emboldened to take on his critics and did so again on Sunday.
In response to TMZ calling the fan an "idiot Super Bowl streaker," Zdorovetskiy tweeted: "You f–king mad bruhhh that we got more attention than you in 30 seconds than you existed."