There’s a football game of some significance on Sunday featuring lots of expensive commercials and enough pregame programming to choke the most committed marathon watchers. The Super Bowl something or other I believe it’s called. Anyway, being the respectable sports blogger that I am, it would be bad of me to remain silent on the prediction front. Here’s what I got:
The folks at Got Milk? have released their Super Bowl-themed print ad featuring Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner, saying both will get called for holding on Sunday–that is, holding a glass of milk. Unfortunately for Darren Rovell, this doesn’t work because quarterbacks aren’t usually called for holding penalties. That’s a tad too nitpicky for my tastes, but I see Rovell’s point. If they wanted to be more quarterback-specific, the folks at Got Milk? could’ve said, “This Sunday, opposing defenses will be penalized for touching my helmet. Because quarterbacks are so dainty, we need all the milk we can get.”
The cost of commercials during Sunday’s Super Bowl is always a point of discussion. This year, the going rate is around $3 million for 30 seconds and because of the economy woes, some companies are a little gun shy about participating. Naturally, a beer company found a creative way around these money issues: Miller Beer’s 1-second commercials featuring the delivery driver sports fans know so well.
These 1-second spots are seen as a knock towards Anheuser-Busch, who have a long history of Super Bowl commercials. The strategy behind these ads goes like this:
I think our hardware crisis has passed, although, the issue wasn’t corrected until later in the day, hence the “last post of the day” feeling that’s in the air. We’ll be back (hopefully) in full force tomorrow with a Super Bowl post or two. The big game tonight is LeBron versus Dwight Howard, so that should be a worthwhile time.
Instead of the mindless ramblings of my opinion about this (Yeah, it’s NSFW-ish and I can see why it’s not wanted in a prime viewing slot; but still, the nanny state reaction still surfaces in my mind. Just look at some of the foreign commercials [a favorite.]), here’s something they call creativity in action. I’m not promising it will be funny.
Who says basketball isn’t a contact sport? Don’t tell that to Gerald Wallace of the Charlotte Bobcats. While driving to the bucket against the Lakers, Wallace’s chest ran into Andrew Bynum’s elbow. The resulting collision put Wallace in the hospital with a potentially collapsed lung and a cracked rib. Surprisingly, the Bobcats still won the game. In Los Angeles. This morning, the discussion is focusing on whether or not Bynum’s elbow was a dirty play or just a tough foul.
I’m not sure if the play was dirty in the sense I don’t think Bynum was trying to injure Wallace. It looks like Bynum was late on defense and decided he’d throw a “no layups allowed” foul on Charlotte’s swing man. I kinda doubt Bynum went in the air with the intentions of cracking Wallace’s rib.
During last night’s “fall on your face” loss to the Ole Miss Rebels, Kentucky had a two-point lead at the half. As is ESPN’s mantra, the sideline reporter, in this case, Jeannine Edwards, had some questions about Kentucky’s star player and the defense Ole Miss was playing to limit his touches. That’s when Billy Gillispie decided to share his feelings on Edwards’ reporting style (check out the lead video).
Gillispie seemed perturbed that Edwards had the audacity to ask the Kentucky coach why his best player wasn’t having his normal game, and the Kentucky coach informed Miss Edwards that Kentucky was more than just Jodie Meeks, his team had the lead, and he thought she had asked him a “bad question.” With that, the Big Blue Nation of Fans erupted, some trying to defend Gillispie’s remark, while others tried to blame the loss on what was said. An example (all sic’d up for your enjoyment):
