PointsBet appears to have attempted a horrible publicity stunt involving tricking people into thinking Drew Brees getting struck by lightning.
We don’t know exactly what happened just yet with the bizarre video that went viral on Friday morning, but Drew Brees is fine and has not been struck by lightning. That’s the important part.
Here’s everything to know about the original video and incident itself, but the one-sentence summation is: A video got shared of Drew Brees suggesting he was struck by lightning while recording a commercial for PointsBet.
It’s unconfirmed, but it does look like it may have been a poorly thought-out marketing stunt by PointsBet. Nick Underhill reported it was a, “spoof.” For what it’s worth, this has been PointsBet’s only comment on the situation thus far:
If it was, indeed a marketing stunt, it was a particularly bad one. Pro tip: Your marketing campaign will be better off if you try to avoid resembling the National Enquirer. Let’s hope there’s some detail that will make this situation a little better, but it looks like they tried to trick fans into thinking Drew Brees’ safety was in question. Not cool if that’s the case!
UPDATE: PointsBet has confirmed this was a marketing stunt. Boo them! Boooooo!
Twitter thinks PointsBet is to blame for the situation, and they’re dragging them for it
Twitter had some fun once they learned Brees was, in fact, safe.
Not a good look for PointsBet no matter how this turns out:
The sportsbook economy is out of control:
Katherine Terrell texted with Brees, and Zack Blatt pointed out how funny it was that her (very good!) journalism career has come to this:
For those gamers out there:
For our The Rehearsal fans:
And Nathan for You:
Chris Paul had the attention pulled away from him on Twitter this morning. He owes PointsBet some thanks:
