This Year's Super Bowl Broadcast May Seem 'Crypto-Happy'. But the NFL Isn't (msn.com) 65
During today's telecast of the Super Bowl, 100 million Americans will see at least three commercials promoting cryptocurrency, reports the Washington Post, "and though Tom Brady may be gone from the game, he hovers over it, hawking crypto exchange FTX."
"Yet the hype belies a more complicated relationship. Unlike the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, the country's most popular sports league, has essentially prohibited its teams from using crypto." It's a microcosm of the broader cultural battle between those touting the currency as the shiny future and others warning of its dangers.... [T]he headlines often come with a negative tint. New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman warned last month about crypto's parallels to the subprime mortgage crisis. This week, the FBI arrested a New York couple for allegedly conspiring to launder billions in crypto. That can scare the large corporate entities of professional sports, particularly the NFL, whose love of fresh revenue sources is matched only by its fear of public relations disasters.... In September, a memo revealed by the Athletic showed the league's restrictive attitude toward crypto... "Clubs are prohibited from selling, or otherwise allowing within club controlled media, advertisements for specific cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, other cryptocurrency sales or any other media category as it relates to blockchain, digital asset or as blockchain company, except as outlined in this policy," it said.
The NFL has made some forays into NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, the digitally watermarked tools that are crypto's less controversial cousin, signing up for a partnership with Ticketmaster for NFTs of Super Bowl tickets and an NFT video highlight program with Dapper Labs, one of the leaders in the space. And of course the Super Bowl is taking place at SoFi Stadium, named for the digitally minded financial firm. But sponsorships from crypto exchanges remain off-limits, and the idea of the NFL creating a cryptocurrency, which some enthusiasts have advocated, is the stuff of fantasy. Even the Super Bowl commercials going for as much as $7 million for 30 seconds — which the league authorizes — include only exchanges such as FTX and not currencies themselves....
The NFL has formed an internal working group to study the regulatory, brand and other consequences of partnering with crypto companies but has set no timetable for when its rules could be revised. Renie Anderson, the NFL's chief revenue officer, said the league is moving slowly by design. "We don't want to put everything and the kitchen sink into this," she said by phone from the site of Super Bowl events in Los Angeles. "We don't know where a lot of this is going, so what we're trying to do is testing and learning so we can understand." She cited regulatory and market forces that are still coming into focus. (The Treasury Department and other federal agencies have been ramping up their efforts to create a regulatory framework for crypto, but there remains a degree of murkiness around what the future limits might be.) The NFL, Anderson said, would rather act after there's clarity. "It's hard to unwind something like a naming rights deal," she said, "and I'd rather not have to undo opportunities two years later because there are rules against advertising or marketing certain things."
National Basketball Association executives, however, say they see a major opportunity right now.
The article also points out that one football star even says he converted his $750,000 salary to Bitcoin. Though one sports analyst calculates that if the purchase was made on November 12th, after federal and state taxes it's now worth about $35,000.
"Yet the hype belies a more complicated relationship. Unlike the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, the country's most popular sports league, has essentially prohibited its teams from using crypto." It's a microcosm of the broader cultural battle between those touting the currency as the shiny future and others warning of its dangers.... [T]he headlines often come with a negative tint. New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman warned last month about crypto's parallels to the subprime mortgage crisis. This week, the FBI arrested a New York couple for allegedly conspiring to launder billions in crypto. That can scare the large corporate entities of professional sports, particularly the NFL, whose love of fresh revenue sources is matched only by its fear of public relations disasters.... In September, a memo revealed by the Athletic showed the league's restrictive attitude toward crypto... "Clubs are prohibited from selling, or otherwise allowing within club controlled media, advertisements for specific cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings, other cryptocurrency sales or any other media category as it relates to blockchain, digital asset or as blockchain company, except as outlined in this policy," it said.
The NFL has made some forays into NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, the digitally watermarked tools that are crypto's less controversial cousin, signing up for a partnership with Ticketmaster for NFTs of Super Bowl tickets and an NFT video highlight program with Dapper Labs, one of the leaders in the space. And of course the Super Bowl is taking place at SoFi Stadium, named for the digitally minded financial firm. But sponsorships from crypto exchanges remain off-limits, and the idea of the NFL creating a cryptocurrency, which some enthusiasts have advocated, is the stuff of fantasy. Even the Super Bowl commercials going for as much as $7 million for 30 seconds — which the league authorizes — include only exchanges such as FTX and not currencies themselves....
The NFL has formed an internal working group to study the regulatory, brand and other consequences of partnering with crypto companies but has set no timetable for when its rules could be revised. Renie Anderson, the NFL's chief revenue officer, said the league is moving slowly by design. "We don't want to put everything and the kitchen sink into this," she said by phone from the site of Super Bowl events in Los Angeles. "We don't know where a lot of this is going, so what we're trying to do is testing and learning so we can understand." She cited regulatory and market forces that are still coming into focus. (The Treasury Department and other federal agencies have been ramping up their efforts to create a regulatory framework for crypto, but there remains a degree of murkiness around what the future limits might be.) The NFL, Anderson said, would rather act after there's clarity. "It's hard to unwind something like a naming rights deal," she said, "and I'd rather not have to undo opportunities two years later because there are rules against advertising or marketing certain things."
National Basketball Association executives, however, say they see a major opportunity right now.
The article also points out that one football star even says he converted his $750,000 salary to Bitcoin. Though one sports analyst calculates that if the purchase was made on November 12th, after federal and state taxes it's now worth about $35,000.
block chain (Score:1)
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Cryptocurrencies are money, not pyramid schemes. That's why there were multiple FOMO ads pumping them on the Superbowl. Just like all those FOMO Superbowl ads pushing you to buy yen, yuan and euros, which I assume exist without having ever watched a Superbowl myself.
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Why Bitcoin is a Scam https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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You only made it halfway through their comment, I see.
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Whenever there are such frequent proclamations that "foo is not a pyramid scheme" I start smelling pyramids.
This may be a metavariable joke on the poo emoji?
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What about "pumping" sounds good and stable and reliable? The fact that it's being pumped means that people don't want it and so the marketing goes into overdrive to try and change minds. No, I don't want your Watchtower, I don't want your free psychiatric test, I don't want to hear about your diet plan, just go away.
Trade cash for some 1's and 0's! (Score:3)
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What sets crypto scams apart is how much money there is behind them. Some of them have been taking out ads in Times Square and now at the Superbowl. That gives you an idea of how profitable those scams are.
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That's basically crypto in a nutshell.
No, Kohl's cash, Disney Dollars and any other retail scrip is at least backed by the company that issued it.
Cryptocurrency is more like investing in a company that has no assets, and consists entirely of gig workers producing the only product the company makes: stock in itself (and the gig workers get paid in - you guessed it - a percentage of the stock they've helped make).
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Get your Enron dollars here! Going cheap! Texas-strong!
Game just ended (Score:4, Informative)
Game was actually pretty good.
The commercials pretty uniformly sucked.
I don't actually remember the crypto ads - maybe I was in the can.
Re: Game just ended (Score:2)
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Man, what was that all about? The NFL / NBC / whoever apparently decides they want to be edgy, and they somehow come to the conclusion that the best way to do that is to run a bunch of old people out there to do rap and hip-hop?! Come on, Mary J Blige was the "young" one... and she's 50!
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halftime show was done for FREE .. oh, Im sorry, for Exposure!
https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/... [femalefirst.co.uk]
"The 'Family Affair' hitmaker will take to the stage during the NFL showpiece game on Sunday (13.02.22) alongside the likes of Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar and although over 100 million people are expected to tune in to watch, she has confirmed none of the artists receive a fee for the prestigious gig, but she knows long term the appearance will generate a lot of opportunities."
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Come on, Mary J Blige was the "young" one... and she's 50!
Marshall Mathers is 49. You're not wrong though, dude is too old to be rapping about anything other than picking up his prescription from Walgreens.
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Marshall Mathers is 49. You're not wrong though, dude is too old to be rapping about anything other than picking up his prescription from Walgreens.
That actually would've been awesome.
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Kendrick Lamar was the young one at 34. Were you bitching also that Prince was too old for Superbowl, or Coldplay, Lady Gaga, and Old Lady Madonna?
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Prince transcends age. Well, he did anyway.
I actually forgot about Kendrick Lamar - I was distracted waiting for one of the old guys to trip and bust a hip.
Re: Game just ended (Score:2)
One I've seen before makes me think it's a crypto ad every time, but it's for Salesforce. Otherwise I missed the crypto ads too.
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SB's TV ads. are getting worse each year. :(
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The Alexa ad actually made me laugh out loud. "Setting a reminder to fake your own death" will definitely stick with me.
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I missed that. I wonder what happened with real Alexa when they heard it.
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I missed that. I wonder what happened with real Alexa when they heard it.
Ever since that one South Park episode, Amazon has been pretty proactive about making sure Alexa won't add big hairy balls to your shopping list when someone on TV asks.
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That episode was hilarious! SP still did that for its COVID-19 specials too.
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By far that was my biggest takeaway from the ads - this was the year that electric cars arrived. For that matter I liked the Jason Bateman one also - that was brutal on the Smart Car.
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I am surprised how positive the over all reaction to the commercials has been. The 'crypto' ads were mostly uninspired and stupid! A Bouncing QR code really, you have a super powerful full motion AV medium and you run an ad that would lose basically nothing translated to a bus bench...
Nostalgia and fan service always sells, but the dialog was without punch. Sure it was fun to see Dr.Evil again but gee wiz you got Mike Myers and Seth Green and the best you can do is a poor execution of one of the movies mi
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A Bouncing QR code really, you have a super powerful full motion AV medium and you run an ad that would lose basically nothing translated to a bus bench...
Do you know how many millions of people were watching closely to see if that QR code ever hit the corner?
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Do you ever get bored of what you do?
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Doubtful; it's the only thing that makes him feel smart :p
Re: Leftists (Score:2)
I remember seeing one (Score:4, Insightful)
The game ended for me 20 minutes ago and, if that Pringles commercial is the only one I remember then, well, I guess well played Pringles. Too bad I don't buy potato chips.
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Re: I remember seeing one (Score:2)
So he converted the taxes they withheld? (Score:3)
The broadcast was saturation happy. (Score:3)
Controversial (Score:5, Insightful)
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, the digitally watermarked tools that are crypto's less controversial cousin,
If NFTs are less controversial than coins, then it's because no one wants them because they are a complete scam.
Re:Controversial (Score:4, Insightful)
If NFTs are so bad, then why is there so much interest in them from people who drive better cars and have better houses than we do?
I don't know what kind of car you drive, but I'm not looking to upgrade. Get a job.
They must know something we don't know.
Yeah, they do. How to rip off newbs.
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And how to launder drug money.
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So you're a racist?
You know the "War on Drugs'' was about racism, right?
"White people are investors, brown people are money launderers" - You.
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Have you stopped beating your wife?
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If NFTs are so bad, then why is there so much interest in them from people who drive better cars and have better houses than we do?
Some of it is people who are using their existing wealth to promote what is essentially a pump-and-dump scam, so they can increase their wealth.
The rest of it is probably just money laundering. As in, "I need to make this shady income look like it came from something legitimate. Oh look, I just sold a bunch of dumb ape NFTs for several million, what luck!"
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Beanie Babies, ya! They're going to make a comeback! They'd better, I've got my retirement tied up in that storage unit full of them!
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Wow, why are all the rich people driving better cars? We should ALL get those cars! A Bugatti for you, a Bugatti for you, and you're too young to drive but a Toy Bugatti for you, ...
Re: Controversial (Score:2)
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You can't get an abortion if there's a lump of pre-muscle tissue that may someday become a heart, but currently there is no ventricles or pumping or arteries. But you CAN deny your children access to health care, vaccinations, even letting them die while you pray as your alternative medicine. Freedom to be an abusive parent! Because Freedom! The gummint can't abuse our kids, only WE can abuse our kids!
Sad (Score:2)
The only one I genuinely liked was the Alexa mind-reading commercial, though I did enjoy the Fast and the Furious bit and chuckled a bit at one or two others.
Honestly, I can barely remember them, other than the ones I mentioned above.
Re: Sad (Score:2)
I don't live in the US, and so don't get Superbowl ads. Probably over a decade ago I was interested enough in the phenomenon to download them. They did not seem any different to regular ads.
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They are not different than regular ads and most of them with the exception of the really long ones will run in ordinary tv spots for the next several weeks or more.
The only 'exceptional' thing about them is Super Bowl ad time is probably the most expensive of all TV advertising. So once you decide to run and ad in the Super Bowl two things are true 1) You better make some serious impressions, or you won't see a positiive ROI and 2) The time is so expensive that adding a zero onto the end of the usual prod
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In Canada, for maybe a couple of years tops, they prohibited "simsubbing" of the Superbowl. (Simsub is the substitution of a channel's programming with that of a local Canadian channel, so if FOX and CTV aired the same program at the same time, the FOX feed would be replaced with the CTV feed for that time period).
Because lots of people complained, they carved out a special exception for the Superbowl so Canadians can view the US ads (without needing a
Cringeworthy (Score:2)
Even leaving crypto completely aside, telling kids to skip realistic opportunities in the hopes of being the next LeBron James is just a horrible message for 99.9999% of the population.
Re:Cringeworthy (Score:4, Interesting)
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On the other hand, people will dump real money into cryptos thinking its a good investment and it'll get them rich. M
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Wrong sport.
Reminded Me of 2000 (Score:2)
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