Eagles fan’s phone blows up after ‘Monday Night Football’ appearance

During the Eagles’ impressive win over the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football, ESPN gave Alan Leimberg a 15-second spotlight to tout his lifelong love of the Birds.

“Yo. When people hear Philly, they think liberty,” Leimberg said as cars on Broad Street whizzed by. “But when we think Philly, we think life. As in living for our team, passing on the gene in every house — parent and child screaming at the top of their lungs, ‘We are lifers for the Eagles!’”

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Following the segment, ESPN announcer Troy Aikman joked that “you can bet all his buddies are calling him right now. His phone’s blowing up.”

Aikman was right.

Leimberg, a retired car salesman, was featured in a weekly spot in which ESPN focuses on a single fan following a commercial break. The idea was the brainchild of Monday Night Football senior associate producer Audra Leimberg, who happens to be his daughter. Naturally, she thought her dad would be the perfect Eagles fan to feature Monday.

“He’s like, ‘my phone won’t stop,’” Audra Leimberg said, adding that her father barely answered her messages as he responded to family members, colleagues he hasn’t spoken to in 20 years, and old friends from the neighborhood in South Philly where he grew up.

“He’s still friends with six guys from that block. They play poker once a month,” she said. “Some of them are 75 years old, and they’ve known each other since they were five.”

Audra Leimberg said they footage of her father that ESPN shot in the center of Broad Street ended up making the cut. They shot additional footage at Sixth and Shunk Streets, where her dad grew up above his father’s corner grocery store, which they didn’t end up using.

“The house is obviously very sentimental,” Audra Leimberg said. “He always described his own father on the stoop, with an apron around his neck, a pencil behind his ear, and a cigar hanging out of his mouth.”

She’s worked for ESPN since 2012, and has been a production assistant on Monday Night Football since 2016. Despite her dad’s passion for the Birds, she credits her older brother, Lance, for her love of sports.

“I used to play NHL 96 with him in the basement on Sega, and be around all his buddies who would play pickup football in the backyard,” Audra Leimberg said. “But my dad was always, always the Eagles fan.”

It’s not surprising so many of Alan Leimberg’s friends saw him on TV. The Eagles’ win averaged 12.9 million viewers on ABC, according to ESPN. The second game of the night, which featured the Buffalo Bills blowing out the Tennessee Titans, averaged 7.9 million viewers on ESPN and ESPN2.

He also wasn’t the only Eagles fan featured on ABC Monday night. During Jimmy Kimmel Live, sidekick Guillermo introduced some die-hards on the show following the win, including tattooed super fan Rob Dunphy and Shaun Young, better known as the guy who wears shoulder pads to every Eagles game.

“Twenty-five seasons, baby, representing the greatest city and the greatest fanbase in the country, Philadelphia, baby!” Young shouted.

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