A superfan in wolf's clothing

Sunday the Super Bowl will be played between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. 

Not that I would consider buying one, but I couldn't resist looking at tickets on StubHub. When I looked, even the nosebleeds were going for $5K. Each. 

You'd have to be some football lover, or some Eagles or Chiefs superfan, to pay that kind of moola to watch a football game. Which I am not.

Even if the Patriots were playing, I can't imagine wanting to go to the Super Bowl. 

I wouldn't mind watching the Red Sox play in a World Series game, but I sure wouldn't pay $5K to sit in the bleachers.

There's one Chiefs superfan who probably won't be in Atlanta rooting his team on, and that's Chiefsaholic. He won't be there because he's in jail for attempted bank robbery.

If you're wondering why the Chiefs have a wolf for a mascot, back in the 80's, the team sought to honor a group of rabid fans who called themselves the wolfpack. So they introduced a second mascot, a wolf. Over time, more fans adopted the wolf theme, especially as the team began phasing out the Native American related mascotry that was in keeping with the team's name, the Chiefs. So, while fans still do the tomahawk chop chanting, they can no longer come to Arrowhead (?) Stadium wearing warpaint and headdresses. And the old mascot - the horse Warpaint, which galloped around the field when the Chiefs scored - has been officially retired and replaced with KC Wolf.

Fans gotta fan, so superfans all pretty much come as wolves.

Chiefasholic was one of the more prominent among them. 

...Chiefsaholic attended nearly every game, home and away. N.F.L. broadcasts regularly featured him celebrating in the stands. He shared his adventures with more than 50,000 followers on social media, boasting about bets that would earn him tens of thousands of dollars if he won.

He had a good seat to see his team win the Super Bowl in Miami Gardens, Fla., in 2020, and took a selfie with the club’s general manager on the confetti-strewn field. He attended quarterback Patrick Mahomes’s annual fund-raising gala last month in Kansas City, and apparently won the painting that was featured onstage throughout the event.

The price tag must have been steep. A Super Bowl ticket like his would have fetched about $8,500, and an individual ticket to the Mahomes benefit goes for $1,250, to say nothing of travel costs. (Source: NY Times)

When fellow superfans asked how he could afford all this fandom, Chiefsaholic told them that he managed a bunch of warehouses. 

Anyway, Chiefsaholic was such presence, both in the stadium and on social media, that fans were concerned when he failed to show for or post about a Chiefs' win in Houston in December. Had something happened to him?

Well, yes, something had happened to Chiefsaholic. 

Those fellow superfans started asking around on Reddit and soon found that Chiefsaholic - whose real name is Xaviar Babudar - was cooling his wolf heels in a Tulsa jail, having been apprehended trying to rob a Tulsa credit union. 

Since Babudar couldn't post the bond ($200k), he missed out on the Big Game on January 29th where the Chiefs punched their ticket to the Bigger Game, the Super Bowl, which'll be played in Atlanta this Sunday.

Turns out that IRL, superfan Babudar was broke, homeless, and had last worked in 2020 (at a warehouse, so there's that). He came from a family with a fairly checkered past: abandonment, bankruptcy, trying to use fake gift certificates in a restaurant...

His Chiefsaholic persona was his reinvention.

The real Xaviar Babudar was a petty criminal.  

In Utah, the police said, Babudar stole spoon holders and snack bags from Target, and another time switched price tags on curtain rods and then attempted to return them for full price. There are still active warrants for his arrest in both cases. He also pleaded guilty to small offenses in Kansas and Missouri. In Champlin, Minn., he was fined $300 for driving without a license.

His license plates said “KCC4EVR.”

I get the license plate, but spoon holders? 

The New York Times wanted to interview him for their article, but he claimed that he was "currently in the process of selling my story rights." If the Times wanted Babudar to play, they were going to have to pay. 

People are scratching their heads wondering how Chiefsaholic - unemployed, living in his car - was able to afford his superfan lifestyle. Some are wondering whether he was a bank robber, although there's no evidence of that beyond the Tulsa caper. 

Was he a gambler? Did he fund his superfan habit by winning big bets? 

And, then there's the practical old me question. If he had been successful enough as either a bank robber or a gambler to support his fandom, why was he spending what he made on football, rather than on something more sensible. Like an apartment. 

Whether he was a serial bank robber or a regular gambler, there's evidence that Babudar has placed a couple of good sized bets. He's got $5K on Patrick Mahomes winning the NFL's MVP Award, and another $5K on Kansas City winning the Super Bowl. And he placed these bets early on, before it was known that Mahomes is a finalist for MVP, and that the Chiefs are going to the Superbowl.

If he wins those bets, Babudar will win $100K.

Maybe he can use it for a good lawyer. 

Ah, the life of a superfan in wolf's clothing.

I do hope that the Tulsa jail has a TV for the inmates, so that Babudar can catch the game, even if he has to watch wearing an orange jumpsuit, rather than his wolf gear. 

I'll be watching, too, at my sister Trish's, as is our tradition. (Looking forward to her excellent nachos.) 

As a non-fan - make that a super-non-fan - I don't really care much one way or the other which team wins. But you can't really watch a sporting event without picking a side. So I'm going with Philadelphia. 

My reasoning is simple: East Coast team, blue state.

Sorry, Chiefsaholic. 

Fly, Eagles, Fly.