Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown helped the team advance to the AFC championship game with a win Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs that he helped clinch with a catch along the sideline. After returning to the locker room at Arrowhead Stadium, Brown celebrated with a controversial Facebook Live stream.
Never mind the sanctity of the locker room as Brown streamed about 17 minutes of uncensored footage on Facebook Live, including coach Mike Tomlin’s locker room speech that referred to the New England Patriots as “assholes” for getting extra time to prepare for next week.
Steelers’ Antonio Brown used Facebook to live-stream profane locker room speech by Coach Tomlin on Patriots: https://t.co/M1qBEcD44X #7News pic.twitter.com/s2JzDnD2SC
— 7News Boston WHDH (@7News) January 16, 2017
“When you get to this point in the journey, man, not a lot needs to be said,” Tomlin could be heard saying on the stream. “Let’s say very little moving forward.”
But Brown gave his fans all-access to the joy, bravado, cursing and preening that goes on in locker rooms after wins.
“Be cool on social media, man,” someone yells out in the locker room after Tomlin speaks. “This is about us. Nobody else, man.”
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But Brown appears to laugh off that statement and continues to stream. Brown smiles as he notes how the live viewership is growing by the moment to 11,000, 16,000, 25,000 at the time of Tomlin’s speech, 32,000, 34,0000 (“Man, that’s a lot,” offensive lineman Alejandro Villanueva said), 40,000, 42,000, 43,000 and 44,000.
The Facebook Live video had more than 1.1 million views and 20,000 shares before it was deleted, according to NFL.com.
A number of Brown’s teammates knew he had gone live in the locker room, speaking directly to the audience on the stream and laughing with him. Others, who were covered only by a towel while changing, might have been unaware what he was filming. Brown even puts the camera on himself as he changes at his locker.
“You going in the shower live, too?” someone is heard asking Brown.
Brown, who just last week was ranked the No. 12 most valued athlete in social media by 120 Sports and MVPindex, laughs and finally ends the stream.
“That’s against I think our team policy,” Brady said Monday in an interview on WEEI, laughing about the idea of doing his own stream of coach Bill Belichick talking. “So I don’t think that would go over well with our coach.”
Added Brady: “Every coach has a different style. Our coach, he’s been in the league for 42 years and he’s pretty old school. He’s not into social media, and I think he lets everyone know that. I think our team has a policy. We don’t show anything that should be private because he feels when we’re inside our stadium or inside of the walls, there has to be a degree of privacy that we have, and so what’s done in the locker room should kind of stay in the locker room.”