Another Cinderella Winner, Curt McKay of Centerville Claims Saints $10,000 NCAA Tournament Prize
Dec 2, 2021ST. PAUL, MN - He had all of three retweets on his Twitter account, but one was worth $10,000. The St. Paul Saints randomly selected one winner for their NCAA Tournament contest and Curt McKay of Centerville, MN was the lucky winner.
McKay (@CurtCmckay22) was one of more than 16,000 official entrants in the Saints Twitter contest. He is originally from Saint Paul and grew up going to Saints games at Midway Stadium. Like many around the country McKay was tuned into the live 1:00 p.m. drawing via Twitter (@Stpaulsaints) and Facebook.com/stpaulsaints.
“The $10,000 prize comes at a perfect time because I was just laid off from my job of 17 years,” said McKay. “I was tuned in and when I saw my name I couldn’t believe it. I was like ‘Are you sure it’s me?’ I immediately called my wife to tell her the good news.”
Despite having just the three retweets, 14 followers, and 111 people he follows, McKay uses his Twitter account strictly as a news feed. He was sitting on his couch when he saw the Saints original tweet on March 13 and figured, “What the heck?” That brief thought was worth a nice pile of cash.
After the NCAA Men’s Basketball brackets came out March 12, the Saints came up with the promotional idea. Give away $10,000 if any of the #16 seeds knocked off a #1 seed, something that had never been done before in 132 tries entering the 2018 tournament. The Saints sent out a tweet Monday morning, March 13, “We don't have a billion dollars like @WarrenBuffett, but our GM @DerekSharrer has officially gone mad. The Saints will give away $10,000 if a 16 seed beats a 1 seed in #MarchMadness2018. All you have to do is retweet this to enter & we'll choose one winner if it happens.” The retweets came fast and furious and by the time the tournament started more than 6,000 people had retweeted the post. By the time #16 seeded UMBC, which we all now know is University of Maryland, Baltimore County blitzed the #1 seeded University of Virginia by 20, there were more than 16,000 retweets, all of which were entered into the drawing. An additional 5,000 retweets occurred since the end of the game for a total of more than 21,000.
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The Saints open the 2018 season on the road against the Gary SouthShore Railcats on Friday, May 18. The home opener is on Monday, May 21 with a 3:05p.m. game against the newest team in the league, the Chicago Dogs. For more information contact the Saints at 651-644-6659 or visit saintsbaseball.com.