Jon Savitt had never done anything like this before, but he knew it was a meteoric moment for Minnesota.
Savitt, a 32-year-old comedian who lives in Denver and grew up outside of Minneapolis in St. Louis Park, has gone viral after a surreal sequence of events involving a TNT postgame interview where Anthony Edwards told Charles Barkley to “Bring ya ass” to Minnesota culminated in Savitt registering bringyaass.com and redirecting it to Minnesota’s tourism web site.
“A lot of people have been asking me, ‘Hey, why didn’t you point this to your book or your website or something to get you clicks or money?’” Savitt told The Post on Tuesday.
“I ultimately decided that this moment was bigger than any one person. This was a moment for Ant, the Timberwolves and the state of Minnesota, and so I just thought the nicest thing I could do with that URL in that moment is drive as much attention to Minnesota as possible.”
Sunday night, after the Timberwolves stunned the defending-champion Nuggets in Game 7 of their second-round playoff series, Barkley told Edwards on TNT’s “Inside the NBA” that he hadn’t been to Minnesota in 20 years (an exaggeration, given he was in attendance when Virginia beat his Auburn Tigers at U.S. Bank Stadium during the 2019 Final Four, a memory Barkley must have blocked out).
Responding to Barkley, Edwards said, “Bring ya ass.”
Moments later, Savitt was at Go Daddy, saw the URL was available and plopped down about $10.
“I’m always working. I had my laptop out and it just happened pretty seamlessly,” Savitt said.
“I always try to see the humor in things and I have an idea of what people are going to latch onto, and that just felt like a moment. Everyone watching it could feel that. It just kind of happened. I haven’t done anything like this before.”
Savitt has been a Timberwolves fan his whole life, and recalled an experience playing on the court at the Target Center when he was about eight years old.
“I lost my shoe and went like 0-for-7,” he remembered.
Savitt, who attended Indiana University, has been grinding as a full-time comic for years, since he had what he described in a deadpan tone as a “mutual parting of ways” with an ad agency.
He has written for Funny or Die and College Humor, worked on screenplays, done a lot of ghostwriting, performed standup and toured as a one-man show where his dream to make the NBA was thwarted by being too short.
He also wrote a book entitled “Unreal Athletes,” in which he profiled fictional athletes who dominated fake sports.
Despite all the attention he’s garnered for the “Bring ya ass” bit, he doesn’t think it’s going to materially change his professional fortunes.
“I don’t really feel like this is a pivotal moment in any sense for my career,” he said.
“If we’re being honest, I don’t really think anything’s gonna change overnight.”
Credit: Source link
