It seemed the results of the @NFLonFOX Twitter poll “Best NFL Fanbase” final four were set, but some suspicious voting patterns on one team’s side were quick to alert the Twitter world.
With 12 minutes left in the “Final Four” matchup between the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans, the Bills were on top with 53 percent of votes. The Titans had pulled the closest they had been since the start of the poll and were gaining ground. NFL on Fox tweeted that the Titans woke up that morning down by 20 percent, but with 20 minutes left, were within 8 percent. Within that last 20 minutes, both Nashville’s NHL team, the Predators, and their Minor League Baseball team, the Sounds, tweeted to their respective fans to vote for the state’s NFL team. They were drawing close, but they were still short.
Suddenly, with still 12 minutes remaining in the poll, they pulled ahead by 8 percent. Almost 20,000 votes were added in less than a minute, all to the benefit of Tennessee. Total votes increased from 124,646 to 144,475 in this span, almost like the odds of Tennessee winning the game that would ultimately be dubbed the Music City Miracle. Bills fans watched in shock as miraculously, the Titans’ fanbase pulled ahead to a 10 percent lead when voting closed, with 150,834 votes being divided amongst the two sides.
The big push of 19,829 votes was suspicious to many Bills fans. Some quickly replied to the poll with GIFs of robots, hinting that real people did not input that many votes. After some digging around, other fans found exactly what they were looking for — screenshots of Tennessee fans boasting about their purchase of Twitter poll votes. One fan, with the twitter handle of @keelanzpage, replied to the @NFLonFOX poll with a screenshot of his receipt for $660.00, good for 20,000 twitter poll votes. The fan, who goes by “Key,” said in the tweet, “#titanup put the city on my back.”
#titanup put the city on my back pic.twitter.com/jv8FdEjFFY
— roger wakefield (@craigdaddy57) April 2, 2019
Sal Capaccio, a longtime Bills radio and TV personality, tweeted after the incident, “I have it on good authority some Titans bloggers and podcasters bought tens of thousands of votes in that FOX poll then shared screenshots and pressured others to do the same. Cost some of them hundreds of $$.”
Other Twitter users began exposing screenshots of other people who “rigged” the vote in the Titans’ favor. @DraftDiamonds posted an article featuring another fan who apparently had a thousand dollar bet on the poll. @dailymotive5 said, “I ain’t losing to the Bills and I had a bet to win, so the bots were pretty cheap in my opinion.” His post was accompanied by his own screenshot of his bot purchase receipt.
Here is a link to the NFL Draft Diamonds article, which goes into more depth on the issue. https://www.nfldraftdiamonds.com/2019/04/billsmafia/
The Buffalo football community dubbed the incident #titangate, and many called for a new poll. However, FOX did not seem to hear the fans cry foul, so the championship matchup between the Titans and the Cleveland Browns will take place starting on Thursday, April fourth at 3 p.m. EST. Expect the “Dawg Pound” and “Bills Mafia” to band together to take down the Titans in the finals, which will conclude Monday evening.
How Did Buffalo Respond?
The Bills family responded in an unusual way to the cheating, but they were righteously prompted by Shelby Waddle, wife of current Bills player LaAdrian Waddle. Mrs. Waddle goes by Chief Mrs. Waddle or @mrswaddle68 on Twitter, and she called the community together to donate to a worthy cause in Nashville.
The Nashville Children’s Alliance is a group that sponsors and helps children that have been abused sexually or physically in their lifetime. In the first 14 hours, Mrs. Waddle said that the children’s advocacy center had received $8,000 in donations from Bills fans. At the time of writing this article, the Alliance in Nashville has received over $14,000. The number is still growing, and it just shows how some Bills fans are interested in “taking the high road.”
If interested in learning more about the Nashville Children’s Alliance, check them out on twitter @nashville_ca, or take a look at their website nashvillechildrensalliance.org.
