Damarious Randall admits huge mistake selling the Cavs fan base short

Damarious Randall said he would buy a jersey for anyone who retweeted him, and he didn’t think it would go completely viral?

It’s one thing to underestimate the city of Cleveland as a fan base. It’s another thing entirely to think that nobody else out there would be interested in a free jersey.

Apparently, Damarious Randall wasn’t thinking clearly.

The new safety for the Cleveland Browns sent out a tweet in advance of the NBA Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors. As you can see below, the tweet said Randall would buy a jersey for anybody who retweeted him if the Cavaliers won the NBA championship.

That tweet has since gone on to become the most retweeted tweet by any NFL player in history, now with more than 800,000 retweets and counting. According to ESPN’s Darren Rovell, it’s the most retweeted tweet in the United States between May 23 and May 29.

After seeing just how much the tweet has blown up, Randall went on to tell Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon-Journal he simply underestimated the Cleveland fan base.

"“I definitely didn’t think it would go as viral as it did,” he said. “I definitely didn’t think the Cleveland fan base would go this crazy about it. Obviously, it was a joke, but just to know how passionate this fan base is, I mean, it’s just really encouraging.”"

Randall said he wasn’t expecting any more than 100 retweets, which is absolutely crazy. Randall is a public figure with well over 130,000 followers on Twitter. Whether he thought he would get very many retweets from Cleveland fans is irrelevant. What about the millions of other people in America and around the world that would love to get a free jersey?

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I retweeted that tweet as soon as I saw it. It’s not because I’m a Cavaliers fan (quite the opposite actually), and it’s not because I care who wins the Finals. It’s simply because I would love a free jersey. Nobody is losing anything by pressing the retweet button, and they have everything to gain if the Cavaliers do manage to come through and win the title.

It’s no surprise that Randall’s tweet exploded. The only surprising thing is that he didn’t see it coming.