Exploring some of the best local TV commercials featuring NBA players.
With NBA League Pass you not only get access to every NBA game not on national television, you also receive the local broadcast of each game. With every local broadcast comes local TV commercials. Some of them feature NBA players, and all of them are amazing. Turns out there are a lot of cheesy/horrible/awesome advertisments out there, and the deeper I went the better they got.
The Buzz City Beanie.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIbm2TztuuQ]For the Bobcats November 29th game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the team is giving away “Buzz City Beanies” to the first 10,000 fans. For those not Bobcats fans, “Buzz City” is part of the campaign getting people excited for next year’s name change to the Hornets, and what better way to show how excited you are for the Hornets than by wearing a winter hat. Seriously though, those beanies look super comfy and warm. To promote this unbelievable giveaway, the team created this advert.
Lets be honest, this is fantastic. Jeff Taylor as the verified hat salesman from Sweden, the before and after with MKG, the TEETH SPARKLING; this is so cheesy it has me wanting to drive four and a half hours to watch two of the worst offensive teams in the league just for the free beanie.
Sam Vincent – Financial Banker.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DYTsrWEQZ8]
It turns out the Bobcats aren’t rookies to appearing in commercials. In 2007 then Bobcats player Jared Dudley (still rocking the cornrows) appeared in a Charlotte Metro Credit Union commercial along with head coach Sam Vincent.
2007 had its ups and downs. Greg Oden’s knees hadn’t failed yet, Lost still made a bit of sense, and Spiderman 3 was the year’s highest grossing film (yeah, I’m just as shocked as you are). Even more astonishing, the Bobcats were looking to break into the playoffs for the first time, and to guarantee that hired Michael Jordan’s buddy Sam Vincent. Already viewed as a legendary coach from his success in Europe and the D-League, Vincent came with some experience, but his lone year in Charlotte proved disastrous. The brilliance of this commercial is just how accurate it depicted Vincent’s coaching career. Scribbling “Free Checking” on a whiteboard is probably the closest thing to a play Vincent ever drew up, and Jared Dudley, confused as to why Vincent is talking about online banking, is berated for questioning a basketball coach’s financial expertise. I’m convinced this exact conversation happened at least once during the season; Vincent wasn’t exactly known for sound coaching decisions.
Isaiah Thomas. Pizza Guy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYOxtPxTQtg]Granted only sixteen seconds, Sacramento pizza chain Pizza Guys apparently wanted to set a record for how many times they could say “pizza” and “guys” in one TV spot. Enter Isaiah Thomas, point guard for the Kings and a pretty diehard pizza guy, and in sixteen seconds a combination of pizza and guy(s) was said seven times. But lets back track. Isaiah Thomas may be a pizza guy, but is he “the” pizza guy? Apparently not, according to the TV spot.
A pizza guy is (but is not limited to):
- A man ordering pizza from the side of the road.
- A woman working in a city zonal office.
- An overly enthusiastic man wearing a collared shirt with baggy sleeves.
In other words, we’re all pizza guys.
If you’ve watched any Kings games this year you’ve likely seen this or one of the other TV spots. They run during every TV timeout, and include one featuring Thomas delivering a pizza to some college aged girls, or rather, some college aged pizza gu–well you get it. If there’s one place Pizza Guys missed out on, it was getting the Maloof Brothers to sponsor an ad. They are after all, two guys, and expressing their love of pizza could have curbed tensions between the city and them, or on the other hand made Pizza Guys the least popular pizza chain in the city. Also, judging from the commercial it appears Pizza Guys rolls around town like an ice cream truck selling pizzas, which might be one of the greatest business ideas in the history of business ideas.
Joakim Noah and Jimmy Butler will follow you everywhere.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxSu-fjO7oI]Really, the only part that makes this commercial worth noting is Noah with his hair down crying over what I’m assuming was an Ayn Rand novel. Still, I’d hang out with Butler and Noah any day because they would make all the mundane things in my life exciting.
Bismack Biyombo explodes out of a huddle to sell you a car.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bbjUFy0sfU]So this may be the third Bobcats related commercial I’ve featured, but it also blows the rest of these away. Where do we begin? Biyombo appearing out of the huddle? The car salesman/Drew Rosenhaus wannabe?
First off, Keffer Chrysler Jeep Dodge did wonders with their limited budget. Filmed in in what looks like a racket ball turned basketball gym, they grabbed the first six kids they could find and told the one wearing the John Stockon shorts to let Biyombo dunk on him off an alley-oop. The salesman talks so fast I can barely understand what he’s saying, and to cap it all off they forced Biyombo to buy a Chrysler 200. I’m curious how many people showed up just to get Biyombo’s autograph, and why the kid is break dancing at the end. I have a lot of questions about this, but I’m not sure I want them answered.
ESPN may have their own series of NBA commercials, but none of them feature poor scripts, limited budgets, or greased out car salesmen. No matter how hard a local business tries, their commercial is going to suck, but adding a NBA player instantly enshrines their commercial in advertisement heaven, or at the very least Youtube.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
