One of the wilder things to happen around the Buffalo Bills’ 27-24 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday came from Betr sports gambling media host Derek Sullivan, otherwise known as “Betr Derek.” Sullivan had been talking up his belief in the Bills to win February’s Super Bowl LVIII for a while, and he chose to back that up not just with financial bets, but with getting a tattoo with the Bills and that Super Bowl logo. He got that tattoo a day before the game, then attended the game in person, and showed the world the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat through a series of live reaction posts on TikTok. Here are a couple of those:
@betr @Derek had to show off the tat in Buffalo #bills #nfl #sports #chiefs ♬ original sound – Betr
@betr DOWN BAD @Derek 🤣 #bills #buffalobills #betrderek #nfl #chiefs ♬ original sound – Betr
In a video interview with AA this week, Sullivan (who leads Betr’s Betr Picks subbrand) said his move to get the tattoo was to take a bold and confident stance on a pick.
“The reason I got it was because I’m a professional sports gambler, and somehow, I’ve developed a reputation on social media as being terrible at giving out picks. And that’s frustrated me for really over a year now. It hurts, it’s frustrating. So I decided to do something huge, to make a splash, a big move, to shift my reputation, to change the narrative. So I put a lot of money on the Bills to win the Super Bowl, and I got the tattoo to show how confident I was. And unfortunately, it just blew up in my face and backfired. It was devastating.”
He said it was particularly brutal to see how this happened, especially with Tyler Bass’ missed game-tying field goal attempt inside the final two minutes.
“I’m always going to be a glass-half-full kind of guy, so generally through games I’m the most confident guy. But having said that, it was the Bills. So you always have to be a little cautious, especially against Patrick Mahomes. But I was very confident. And it was a good game, long, sustained drives, there weren’t really any big plays, so we knew we were in for a good ending. And I couldn’t believe…it wasn’t the ending I expected, for sure. When Tyler Bass missed that field goal, my heart sank.”
Sullivan said he initially thought the field goal was good thanks to where he was sitting.
“You know what’s funny? At first, I thought it went in, because of my angle on the field. I was sitting right next to the goal post, he missed wide right and I was sitting on the left side. It’s really hard to tell when a field goal goes in [from there]. Generally, you’ve got to watch the refs. I didn’t watch the ref in that moment, I just watched it go through what I thought was the uprights, and the fan behind me was like ‘Hey, he missed.’ And that was the moment my heart sank. I couldn’t believe it.”
@betr @Derek is in shambles 😳 #bills #buffalobills #chiefs #nfl ♬ original sound – Betr
In the wake of that miss, and that loss, Sullivan’s attracted a lot of media attention for his tattoo. And he said he’s not really thrilled about that.
“Ever since then, I’ve just been dealing with the consequences of what I did. And I’ve been frustrated with a lot of things. But it is what it is.”
Some of that media attention came from FS1’s The Carton Show, where Sullivan did an interview Wednesday. There, they identified him as a Bills’ fan (he says he is not a fan of any team), made fun of his picks, and made fun of his appearance.
After his Bills Super Bowl tattoo went viral, @betr_derek joined FS1's The Carton Show…and got roasted. "This is Derek, with the bad tattoo and the thin arms." pic.twitter.com/p5pp2tP3bQ
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 26, 2024
And they continued that mockery twice later in the show after he was off the air. Here are those clips:
Derek Sullivan got roasted twice on "The Carton Show" after that interview, too. First, "that fan with the skinny spaghetti arms." pic.twitter.com/jBfchNn77f
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 26, 2024
And then "The king loser for the Buffalo Bills! …Shockingly, no girlfriend in sight. Speechless, topless, 10 below, bad tattoo on his skinny arm." pic.twitter.com/Joy82RUDJM
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 26, 2024
Former NFL wide receiver (and controversial Arena Football figure) Antonio Brown also chirped Sullivan:
Cracker tweakin https://t.co/lyaPglINUY
— AB (@AB84) January 22, 2024
Sullivan told AA he regrets the tattoo, and he’s still disappointed by the loss. But he’s also not thrilled with how this has been covered.
“I’ve been just frustrated with a lot of things. Frustrated with myself for getting the tattoo, frustrated with the Bills for missing the freaking field goal and losing the game in the fashion that they did, frustrated with the people who think the tattoo was fake, because it’s 100 percent not, it’s 100 percent real.
“I’m very frustrated with the reaction. Antonio Brown’s making fun of me on Twitter, on The Carton Show, they were making fun of me, they just brought up crazy things like about how skinny I was, ‘noodle arms,’ saying I don’t have a girlfriend, saying the tattoo was a bad tattoo, saying I couldn’t do a pushup, all this stuff. So yeah, just frustrated. If I could describe this whole process, it’s frustration.
This led to Sullivan even getting roasted by Betr cofounder Jake Paul:
@betr Jake Paul even laughing at @Derek now 😂 #bills #chiefs #nfl #jakepaul #betrderek ♬ original sound – Betr
But Sullivan said he had his reasons for backing the Bills.
“It felt like Josh Allen’s year. A lot of times, they go into the playoffs with high expectations. There was one point this year where they weren’t even expected to make the playoffs. For them to just squeeze into the playoffs with lower expectations than normal, I thought that this was their year. I thought that they would benefit from the low expectations.
“And I just thought it would work out. I put money on them during the season when they weren’t expected to make the playoffs, at +2500. I put money on them at +1100. I was just so confident. And I’m just not over the loss yet; it still hasn’t really sunk in.”
He reiterated to AA that he is not a Bills fan, and not a fan of any team.
“Absolutely not. In no way do I care about the Bills. The moment that field goal was missed, that was the moment I’ll never care about them again.
“Nowadays, I’m a fan of the team that makes me money. Growing up, I was a huge Tom Brady fan, huge Patriots fan. I was born the year he was drafted. As he retired, I had just exited college, and I just had different priorities. Right now, I just want to make money on sports, and that’s what I care about, not really being a fan of other grown men playing sports that don’t care about me. I’m just here playing for myself.”
And while some may see this whole saga as an attempt by Sullivan to get attention for himself and his Betr show, he said his ideal coverage of this actually would be no coverage.
“Maybe in a perfect world they don’t cover it. We all just quietly move on. That would be nice. But that will never happen.”
Sullivan emphasized that this was just an attempt to show confidence in his pick.
“I’m viewed as a terrible sports gambler, and that hurts. I needed to shift that narrative. And the only way to do that is be open about that from the beginning. If, say, the Bills had won the Super Bowl and I didn’t say anything about it until after, ‘Oh, look at this huge bet I had,’ nobody’s going to believe me, and nobody’s going to care. I’m always honest, I’m always going to be open. People can make fun of me for my bets and all that, but they can’t make fun of me for how truthful I am about my wins and my losses.
He said he does understand that coverage of his missed bet is different because of his media role, though. And he doesn’t regret that media role.
“I would say so. If I wasn’t also in the media, if I’m sitting on the couch watching a bet and it loses, the only thing that affects is my pocketbook. And that’s unfortunate. But because I am in the media, not only does it affect my pocket, I have to hear some crazy insults the rest of the day, I have to go through a lot of ****.
“But this is what I signed up for. I work for a great media company, Betr, also a gambling and fantasy app. So when I work for them, this is what I signed up for, this is what I know. And this is what I love to do, don’t get me wrong. As frustrating as it can be, I love the challenge of going against the public in social media. As much as they’re making fun of me, I like to get my jabs in when I can.”
As for the tattoo itself, Sullivan told AA he has no firm plans there yet.
“A lot of people have been asking me that. I would say right now, I don’t really have the answer. I’m looking into many options, one of which I’ve said is that I would love to have Josh Allen pay for my tattoo removal, I think that would be pretty fair. But maybe I cover it up, maybe I just cross it out and get a new team.
What he does have definitive plans for is to keep going, and to not let this bug him for too long.
“I’m going to bounce back like I always do. That’s what I like to say. If there’s one thing about me, I’m never going to let all this stuff really get to me. Sure, it can be annoying in the moment, but I’m always going to stay focused.
“And as much as I love being right, I love proving people wrong. And this just gives me quite an opportunity to prove everybody wrong that laughs at me right now. I always know at the end of the day I’m going to get that last laugh. I’m excited for the future.”
