Steelers’ Antonio Brown has endorsement deal with Facebook

Antonio Brown put himself in hot water with a Facebook Live video last week, but he may have a good reason for it.

After the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday night, wide receiver Antonio Brown captured the postgame locker with a video on Facebook. It was clearly a violation of the NFL’s pre and post-game social media policy, and a violation of Steelers’ team policy too as head coach Mike Tomlin’s comments were captured. But Brown may have had an off-field reason for doing the video.

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Brown has a six-figure endorsement deal with Facebook. The video, which was taken down fairly quickly last Monday morning, grabbed a lot of views from a typically off-limits environment and surely added to Brown’s Facebook following.

Pro Football Talk has added to the story with a suggestion that Facebook encouraged Brown to live stream from the locker room. That’s hardly surprising, even if a token no-comment came from Facebook and a separate PFT source has dismissed the notion that Brown was encouraged to do the video.

Based on his production over the last four seasons, Brown’s is criminally underpaid with a base salary of $1.275 million this year. But he is in line for a contract extension soon, with just one year left on his current deal, and Rapoport suggested last week the Steelers could make Brown the NFL’s highest-paid wide receiver.

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Going forward, Brown will have to find other ways to justify Facebook’s apparent big investment in him. It should have been obvious to avoid capturing the Steelers’ locker room immediately after a game, even with a vested interest in doing it. But fans would surely enjoy glimpses into Brown’s off-the-field life, particularly during the offseason, with mass clicks, likes and shares to make Facebook happy.