At the very least, nobody can accuse Gary Lineker of not being a good sport.
The retired soccer player and BBC sports presenter bravely stripped to his boxer shorts to present the program “Match of the Day” on Saturday.
The stunt was the result of a promise Lineker made late last year. He vowed to appear on TV in just his underwear if his former soccer team, Leicester City, won the Premier League in May.
The chances were certainly in his favor. Oddsmakers made the club a 5,000-1 long shot at the start of the season. But in perhaps the underdog story of the year in sports, Leicester City walked away with the title.
So after several months of “will he or won’t he” speculation, Lineker finally made good on his #PantsPromise (pants being a British term for underwear).
Lineker called the experience “strangely terrifying.”
But he had plenty of support. One cricket club posted a photo of their players watching his newscast while stripped down to their skivvies.
It’s only the latest example of British audiences being entertained by an audacious TV personality during a newscast.
Last September, a meteorologist nailed the extremely long name of a town in Wales. The town, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, consists of 58 letters but somehow rolled easily off the presenter’s tongue.