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A couple weeks ago, the GOAT of YouTubers — James Donaldson, better known as Mr. Beast — and the GOAT of football, Tom Brady, teamed up with a slew of other star athletes — Cristiano Ronaldo, Bryce Harper, Bryson DeChambeau and Noah Lyles — for a Yahoo Sports-sponsored Mr. Beast competition video. (Mr. Beast has professed his sports fandom in many past videos).
The video went predictably viral, with Brady's segment garnering particular attention. The competition pitted regular athletes against the world's greatest, and Mr. Beast promised to give substantial payouts to any of the regular contestants who could defeat their superstar competition.
Even though the payout for the football challenge against Brady was $100,000 (compared to the $1,000,000 winnings for the soccer competition against Ronaldo), the Brady segment seems to be the most-discussed moment from the video for a few reasons.
First and foremost has been the amusing reaction of Brady's challenger, Florida high school quarterback Jake Balanovich, to the victory.
Balanovich is a senior at Cypress Bay High School, and has thrown 14 touchdowns this season, but his feat against Brady wasn't actually all that jaw-dropping. His challenge was to hit and pop four balloon targets of varying lengths on a football field before Brady could pop his. But Brady's targets were much smaller balloons to level the playing field. The competition was neck-and-neck, with each QB tied at 3 balloons apiece, as they went for the last target — at a distance of 50 yards away.
Brady narrowly missed his target, and Balanovich threw around five yards short of his, but got a lucky break when the ball bounced off the field and directly into the last balloon. Jake and his onlooking high school teammates went wild, but the victory wasn't exactly jaw-dropping.
Nevertheless, that didn't stop Balanovich from bragging in a video interview with TMZ Sports that he wanted to take on Peyton Manning next. “I look up to you [Peyton], you're a great quarterback but, you know, I beat one, I'm gonna go on to the next,” he humble-bragged.
“I'm collecting every top quarterback like a gauntlet,” Jake continued. Wow, big talk for a guy who got extra big balloon accommodations.
Ultimately, Jake Balanovich's feat seems to check a lot of boxes for what viewers want to see right now — Mr. Beast giving away money in a competition video, Tom Brady losing at football, an “average Joe” beating an athletic superstar, and an unapologetic display of unearned confidence and braggadocio. Above all, being featured in a viral breakout video with Mr. Beast seems to represent the new American dream, so really it's no surprise what's transpired.
