If you’d like to own a piece of one of the most surreal scandals to ever hit the NFL, you’re in luck. One of the footballs that was used by the New England Patriots during the Deflategate/Ballghazi/AFC Championship Game is being put up for auction.
The starting bid?
$25,000.
The infamous piece of Patriots history is the property of Patriots fan Laura Nichols who was at the AFCCG with her husband. She received the ball from Brandon LaFell in the third quarter of the game.
“LaFell picked up the ball, I pointed at him, he pointed at me and he handed me the ball,” Nichols said. “It was all so surreal.”
While officials found that the Patriots footballs were deflated at halftime, the balls were simply inflated, not replaced according to the Wells Report. Based off of that, Nichols can definitely claim that she has one of the Deflategate footballs.
Before halftime ended, all eleven Patriots balls were inflated and set to a permissible pressure level. The four Colts balls tested were not inflated because they measured within the permissible range on at least one of the gauges used at halftime. The fifteen footballs tested, and the balance of the Colts balls collected at halftime, were returned to the field for use in the second half.
$25,000 seems like a fairly high price to pay for a Deflategate football but the auction house that is putting the item up for bidding, Lelands.com, thinks that this piece of football history can sell for a lot of money. The company’s founder Joshua Evans told ESPN that he “could see this ball getting six figures.”
Considering that Nichols is a Patriots fan, it’s hard to fault her for wanting to cash out on a piece of football history that will be used to mock her favorite team for the foreseeable future.
If one has a bunch of money to throw around and can’t get enough Deflategate in their lives, head over here for the auction.
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