At first I was like, “Holy F#%king Super Bowl Tickets, Batman!” …

I mean tickets to the Golden Game? Super Bowl 50? In San Francisco? Club Level? Running elbows with the bourgeois of the world like Beyoncé, Pres. Obama, The Mannings, and Katy Perry? I mean who wouldn’t want that?

But then “$3K PER TICKET” smacked me on the brain like an errant elbow from your girlfriend who’s tossing and turning in bed after a 10-tequila-shot bender at 4a in Vegas or Monte Carlo.

Three thousand dollars? And six thousand dollars for two? Face Value? Who would pay $6,000 for Super Bowl tickets and feel good about themselves while drinking $15 beers in their plush club level seats while behemoths slam into each other while involving concussion protocols that can only truly be determined after death? I mean $1 a day helps a whole family eat three squares in Southern Sudan right?

C’mon NFL, really? Are you donating a part of this to some kind of charity? Sheesh! So right there I made my Stub Hub commitment to scalp these suckers and help out the world. Final result ended with an $8,000 donation to a local food bank.

Will I regret it? No way. It’s not like it’s a Kings-Capitals Stanley Cup Final ticket, right?

Okay, so where am I?

I’m at home waiting for my chili to finish cooking so I can have my Hebrew Nationals (a package of seven cost me $3.99, while a single hot dog at Levi’s Stadium would have run me $8.00; I think I made a good choice to sell my tickets and watch at home, don’t you think?).

Based on one of the best Super Bowl commercials (there weren’t many), I should have stuck with Heinz condiments. Heinz’s clever blend of America’s love of a dog commercial and blended it with a time-honored brand and a dash of quirk. The Heinz’s Wiener Stampede jumped from the field and into our hearts. It also proved that if you had a big hit in the 70s, then you can make money in 2016 (ala Harry Nilsson’s “Without You”).:

I think I may have stumbled on my true calling: Athlete fixer. Last year, I reached out to Seattle Seahawks’ running back Marshawn Lynch to be his media coach. Before that, I detailed how to eliminate your stage fright. This year it’s Carolina Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton who needs a little Media Guy help. His post-game presser was a personal disaster. For a guy who makes $10 mil annually in endorsements, he sure needs a lessen in humility. His three-minute talk to the media included nine answers that were three words or less. Someone should have taken him aside before walking into that room. Where was his Jerry Maguire? Where was the Panthers’ PR person to protect their most valuable player asset? C’mon Panthers! You’re better than that!

So Cam, as I told Marshawn, next time you ready yourself to Superman into a press conference after a humbling defeat, give the Media Guy a ring…or just email me.

(BEST) AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER
Anheuser-Busch

After Helen Mirren’s commercial scorned us not to drink and drive, but then winds up drinking a beer and says, “This is suppose to be fun,” Peyton Manning slipped in the most effective commercial of them all. With everyone hanging on his post-game interview, pondering if he will announce his retirement, he instead listed his top priorities right now, saying he was going to drink a lot of Budweiser.


Holy ad messaging contradiction!

(RUNNER UP) AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER
Baldwin Bowl

(WORST) AD OF THE WEEK/MONTH/WHATEVER
Mountain Dew’s puppymonkeybaby

Creepy and disappointing! When that ridiculous thing hit the screen with its bad Godzilla-like stop motion CGI and started licking the guy’s face somehow inspiring him to drink the new Mountain Dew drink, I wanted to punch the television. But what do I know?

The abomination of a commercial was trending on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all day. The ad garnered Mountain Dew almost 70,000 mentions** Good, bad or ugly, viewers wouldn’t stop talking about this nightmare.

Dude on Twitter said it best:

*- According to Market Watch
**- According to Amobee Brand Intelligence