Curiosity leads Dennish to memorable Fanatics Games experience
Matt Dennish ’08 became intrigued by the Fanatics Games out of curiosity. His curiosity landed him bragging rights, a negotiation with Tom Brady and Kevin Hart and $250,000.
Dennish, a former member of ECU’s cross country and track and field teams and a physical education teacher in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, finished in third place at the Fanatics Games last summer. The competition, held at Fanatics Fest in New York City, allowed 50 lucky fans to compete with 50 athletes and celebrities in a multi-event skills showdown for $2 million in prizes, including $1 million for first place, a Ferrari for second place and a rare LeBron James rookie card for third along with bragging rights.
“Being a big Philadelphia sports fan, I follow (Fanatics founder) Michael Rubin on Instagram,” Dennish said. “The catch was the prizes, and I was intrigued. I’ve done random athletic feats in my life and felt like I had a pretty good shot. I noticed the date of the event, submitted a video and decided to see what happens.”
On Father’s Day, Dennish was with his family when he received a phone call from Rubin inviting him to the competition, which was scheduled for four days later. With little time to train, he and his brother went to a local elementary school and practiced the events. His WWE entrance was perfected in the hallway of his hotel room the night before the competition.
“I felt like I could do everything minus a couple of events, and they dropped the lowest two scores,” he said. “At the same time, it’s people from all over, and you don’t know anything about your competition from the fans as well as what the professional athletes can do. You don’t have to be great at one thing; you just have to be good at all of them.”
The skills challenge included the WWE entrance contest, baseball pitching, hockey slapshot, football passing, basketball shooting, an Ultimate Fighting Challenge striking contest, a soccer goal-scoring shootout and a golf accuracy contest using a simulator. Dennish, who was one of the first participants in the three-day competition, tallied the highest score of all 100 competitors in the baseball pitching accuracy contest.
At the end of the competition, Dennish trailed only Brady, who won the contest, and UFC star Justin Gaethje. He met both backstage before an awards ceremony and photo shoot.
“Tom asked me some questions about what I did, what events went well and if I was a card collector,” Dennish said. “When we went on stage, he made the offer to buy the card for $250,000. Kevin Hart stepped in to negotiate and Brady agreed to include a signed jersey and card as part of the deal.”
With the Fanatics Games completed and some unexpected gifts from Brady finding a place in his home, it still doesn’t seem real to Dennish.
“I still look back and I’m like, ‘How did I just end up doing that?’” he said. “I did it to challenge myself and have a little fun. But after talking with other competitors, we were all excited to be there. I think it exceeded their (Fanatics) expectations, how the event turned out.“
Dennish looks forward to the possibility of competing in the next Fanatics games.