Hidden Carolina Panthers Message
The NFL preseason may not kick off for another few weeks, but the Carolina Panthers are already making headlines with their social media presence. After the team’s account took to Twitter Friday morning to reveal they had hidden a secret message in their tweets, their followers were quickly on the case.
“Now go back and read the first word of our tweets from the last three days,” they wrote.
Turns out, the Panthers had elaborately tweeted the lyrics of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song in reverse chronological order. “Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down and I’d like to take a minute just sit right there I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air,” reads the first words of the series of 40 tweets.
Sports and streaks go together like bacon and more bacon.
Panthers fans surely remember their team’s recent 18-game winning streak in regular season games – an NFC record. Not as many recall Carolina’s streak of 13 consecutive lost coin tosses back in 2012, though it was a big enough deal at the time that fans were given the power to pick (wrongly) the 13th heads-or-tails decision.
Can you predict such streaks? Probably not, but it’s fun trying. It also can be infuriating.
About seven weeks ago, a co-worker who shall remain nameless (though I’ve cursed his name since) introduced me to “Beat the Streak”, a contest sponsored by Major League Baseball that challenges sports fans to take their crack at topping Joe DiMaggio’s famed 56-game hitting streak that has stood above all others since 1941.
Besides being a baseball fan – or at least an Orioles fan – there were 5.6 million reasons why I was intrigued. Beat DiMaggio’s streak, and you’re $5.6 million richer.
Here’s the thing: The contest started more than 16 years ago.
Earlier this season, someone put together the longest streak to date out of the more than 80 million attempted since the contest debuted in 2001. Robert Mosley picked 51 consecutive batters who came through with a hit the day he selected them, only to see his dream die on the 76th anniversary of the day that DiMaggio’s streak started the Carolina panthers message said.
I can’t imagine how DiMaggio did it, much less Robert Mosley. It took five of us at Panthers.com 10 days before one of us managed a five-game streak, even though you’re allowed to pick up to two players a day. It took me eight days to even officially record a streak after I went 1-for-2 seven straight days (that’s sort of a notable streak). I’ve topped out at nine so far; Bill Voth shocked the world with a 15-game streak that came and went. More from panthers twitter message
The NFL doesn’t lend itself to streaks quite as nicely, though “survivor pools” that have become all the rage in recent years share some characteristics. Survivor pool participants aim to pick one winner each week of the regular season. If that team wins, you survive to play the next week, Carolina panthers message goal being to be the last man or woman standing. Harder than you might think in the parity-driven NFL, especially since most pools only allow you to pick a team once.