Of course, the explosion in sports commercials was centered around shoes. Miller Lite commercials were like a gateway drug to the athlete commercial excess of the 1990s.
There aren’t enough men named Mendy these days, and there are also aren’t enough commercials where people argue about the merits of light beer. In 1976, Tommy Heinsohn did a classic Miller Lite commercial with retired NBA referee Mendy Rudolph. Imagine buying a pair of low-top Jordache shoes - that’s Jordache, not Jordan - to play basketball in? Yes, in 1980, Earl Monroe was trying to hawk them on TV.
But really, the true way is: Do you remember it? And how does it make you feel?įor instance, two decades after it aired, whenever I see Grant Hill, I think to myself, “Grant Hill drinks Sprite.” It’s because of this commercial, one in a long history of athletes drinking carbonated sugar water before or after playing sports.īefore the commercialization revolution of the 1980s and ’90s, before every soft drink, fast-food restaurant and shoe company was employing athletes, before Jim Riswold, Spike Lee, Wieden + Kennedy and Nike turned Michael Jordan into a marketing dream, NBA commercials were mostly tame fare. There are many ways to judge the best: on the art, the music, the theme, the humor.