The ball that sailed through the uprights to give the Kansas City Chiefs a Super Bowl 57 championship wound up in the hands of a guy from…Australia.
Eamonn Dixon works as a creative director for an ad agency in San Francisco and worked on a Dorito’s campaign for the game. He’d always wanted to go to a Super Bowl and when he was offered a ticket at the last minute Sunday, he hopped on a plane to Phoenix.
His seat was in the end zone and the kick by Harrison Butker with eight seconds left sailed over the netting designed to stop balls from going into the stands.
“In the pregame, they were kicking the ball towards us, just before the game was going to start, and all the balls hit the net, so you don’t expect it. That’s why I was a bit taken aback,” he told a media outlet back home.
Dixon actually filmed his own catch. He decided to capture the kick just for posterity when the ball sailed toward him.
“I was filming because I was just trying to film this historic moment anyway – him kicking the field goal was huge. And then it sort of just drifted over the net, and luckily I held onto my phone and the ball.
“Everyone was asking for photos with me and giving me high-fives. I shoved it in my friend’s bag and we got ushered towards the exit and, all of a sudden, I was out in the carpark. It was just all a bit of a blur.”
No one from the NFL approached him. “I was waiting for someone to come and ask for it back,” he told 9 News Melbourne.
A Fitzroy North man is walking away from #SuperBowlLVII with more than just once in a lifetime memories.
Eamonn Dixon recounts the amazing moment that he marked the match-winning punt and how he managed to keep the football amid all the chaos. #9News pic.twitter.com/5Kh8Y6Qe80
— 9News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) February 14, 2023
After a trip back home to San Francisco where he said he planned to show the ball to his two young kids and take a few more pictures, he says he’ll decide what to do with it.
“I’ll be willing to part with it for the right price,” he admitted to another interviewer on Monday.
David Hunt, President of Hunt Auctions, which conducts the annual Super Bowl Auction, told SC Daily he thought the ball would be a six-figure item.
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