A trophy started around a social platform and a friendly-wager, the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy (Nebraska vs. Minnesota) is the epitome of social betting, but also one of the newest trophies on our list starting in 2014. Started with a tweet between Minnesota's mascot, Goldy the Gopher and the parody account of Fake Bo Pelini.
The trophy started with:
and soon grew from a tweet into a bet:
with the added wittiness of a gopher lays the groundwork for a traveling trophy...
The community jumped in with @korkedbats offering a design that looks amazing, yet all too familiar...(seriously, that $5 price tag is the icing on the cake...)
Yet, it was the community of Minnesota supporters that took the idea from twitter to create a physical trophy that was brought to Lincoln for the November 22, 2014 game. It didn't stay in Lincoln long with Minnesota winning 28-24 over Nebraska.
The next year, the Cornhuskers were determined to get their hands on the chair and dominated in a 48-25 victory to bring the chair trophy back to Lincoln, Nebraska.
In 2016, Nebraska beats Minnesota by a score of 24-17, but the vibe of the game was off as the chair trophy was nowhere to be found... A hard fought battle had nothing to celebrate. Some speculated the athletic departments tried retiring the trophy, others claim neighboring Big Ten schools got jealous of it and took it, few really know the true story...
But the hearts of Nebraska fans had bigger plans as they built a new trophy and made it bigger than ever with a joint focus from Minnesota and Nebraska fans to raise funds for charities of each University.
Team Jack at University of Nebraska and Team One Four at University of Minnesota were the "chair"ities on feature for the trophy. With a vision to raise funds for the great cause of fighting cancer, communities of sports fans banded together to support the cause. Each year, the goals grew and the awareness of the trophy grew. The first year of raising money for charity finished with the following success:
2017 Goal: $5K; 2017 Raised: $7.5K
2017 Game Winner: Minnesota 54, Nebraska 21
As the trophy grew, the impact of Team Jack and Team One Four continued to grow.
It was 2019 where BettorEdge intersected with the Chair trophy, revelled around the idea of a friendly sports bet growing into a friendly trophy and a charity cause, the draw was obvious to begin a partnership around social betting and raising funds for an amazing cause.
Fast forward to 2022, where the Chair Trophy had raised over $125K for charity. With Team Jack focusing on supporting childhood brain cancer research with brain tumors and Team One Four Fund focuses on fighting cancer through building out an enhanced transfusion center on the 9th floor of the M Health Masonic Children's Hospital.
To today, in 2023, where the goals and stakes are even higher as the trophy has more awareness and each charity wishes to raise more funds to support the trophy's goal of $15,000!
BettorEdge is honored to partner with the chair trophy to donate $5,000 to the fanbase that gets the most votes in a competition (and a mere $1,000 as a consolation prize to the losing "chair"ity). With the competition focused on shedding more light on the great causes behind Team Jack Foundation and Team One Four Fund, this competition is meant to show the fun side of rallying together, behind a team, behind a cause for the greater good of connection and fun. For anyone that wishes to checkout further what BettorEdge has to offer, any new users that place a friendly wager on their platform for the Nebraska-Minnesota game, BettorEdge will donate $5 to their preferred charity of choice (from using code Team14 and TeamJack).
Learn more about the Team Jack story here.
Learn more about the Team One Four Fund story here.