For most human beings on this planet, mistakenly live broadcasting an audio version of your intimate encounter is an embarrassing moment with no comebacks. But when you are an icon like Shannon Sharpe, even an embarrassment can be turned into a positive. Following Sharpe’s infamous IG Live [wink wink], Nightcap recorded an unprecedented six-figure live viewership on the channel.
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After clips from the unintentional broadcast went viral across the internet, Unc had no option but to address the issue. Until this point, almost every sports fan in America must have come across the footage.
For most of us, this would have been a traumatic experience without a silver lining. But when life threw lemons at Shannon, he made the best lemonade out of it, as fans flocked in record numbers to tune into his emergency Nightcap episode with Ocho.
As per Unc’s official handle on “X”, a whopping 300,000 concurrent viewers was recorded during the broadcast.
Not only did Sharpe celebrate this milestone, but he also unapologetically urged even more fans to tune into the live. And this led netizens to poke further fun at the NFL legend:
so unserious pic.twitter.com/yt0Da9Nmyl
— ☆ (@realonx1) September 12, 2024
No one could ever do a better marketing move
— Monta (@montaluna26) September 12, 2024
All about the numbers, as usual ♂️ how do you hold other people to a higher standard and explain the situation as loose as this ♂️ the “hack” was a lie, IG live just started by itself, I mean @espn came down on @paulpierce34 for similar activities so how can you try and humiliate…
— #celine (@shastrimusic) September 12, 2024
However, while the majority rightly trolled Shannon for his “shameless” plug on “X”, others congratulated him for the record-breaking numbers on Nightcap.
UNC out here doing numbers!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/gOi3Uae00v
— HTX Phantom (@HTXPhantom12) September 12, 2024
Y’all killin it. No worries from me. Shit happens. It’s all good. Still gonna watch the show (Nightcap that is…). Still respect y’all for being forward about it.
— Aezetyr (@Aezetyr) September 12, 2024
Fortunately for Shannon, his plea for viewership paid off, as netizens flocked in massive numbers to watch the recorded version of the emergency podcast.
From massive YouTube numbers to sponsorship, Sharpe is the biggest winner from IG Live mishap
As of writing, Nightcap’s emergency podcast has crossed the 1 million viewership mark [1,387,666] in just 15 hours. Further addressing the controversy, Sharpe later posted a 25-minute solo video, giving his clarification on the entire fiasco. This video also garnered more than 200k views.
To sum it up, these two videos alone on Nightcap’s YouTube channel garnered over 1.5 million views in the last 15 hours. To put things into context, this viewership count is more than Nightcap’s last 8 videos combined.
But the party didn’t stop here for Sharpe. The controversy also saw monetary benefits for the podcast, as the Viagra brand “Ro Sparks” was smart enough to sponsor the emergency podcast.
Unc and Ocho were even smarter to release Nightcap-themed “69” t-shirts for sale.
Call it sheer luck or quick thinking, there haven’t been more successful disaster mitigation strategies than the ones implemented by Shannon’s team in the last hours. Unreal work!
