Are there going to be any NBA players on your television during the Super Bowl? Well, LeBron James will not be on the sidelines (the Heat play at home that day). Maybe he or Kobe Bryant show up in an ad, maybe not.
But there will be one NBA owner — Mark Cuban.
Selling Skechers. He is apparently buying into the shoe company and will be in their ad, reports The Big Lead. The ad will tell the story of some small dog beating greyhounds in a race because he wears Skechers. Funny stuff, I’m sure. I owned some Skechers, pretty sure they made me slower (which is hard to do, by the way) but I’ll check it out. It could be funny.
But, of course, there is controversy. It follows Cuban around like the paparazzi follows around Jay-Z. From The Big Lead.GREY2K USA, a non-profit group based in Somerville, Mass., opposes all greyhound racing and cites numerous instances of abuse and deaths to support its cause. “Thousands of greyhound advocates around the world signed our petition [to have Skechers ban the commercial] and also sent direct e-mails to company officials,” the group writes on its Web site….
Skechers described the commercial as “focusing on humor – and embracing our position as an underdog as Skechers launches a new lightweight, flexible running shoe with revolutionary mid-foot strike technology.”I’m sure Cuban is really losing sleep over this. I want him to know it’s all okay with me. In fact, if he buys my Dodgers, I’ll even go out and buy some Skechers.
