Super Bowl week is Ground Zero for marketers, networkers, PR pros, brand managers, celebrities, and corporate tycoons. And it doesn’t matter a whit if their brands have nothing to do with football.
If you’re looking to build relationships and forge new deals, you’ve GOT to be there!
But if you’re just into celebrity stargazing, a great place to start is radio row. It’s exactly what it sounds like: dozens of different radio shows, all side-by-side, doing live remotes from the Super Bowl host city. For celebs with something to sell, it’s a fantastic opportunity to hit multiple shows in just a few hours.
My first Super Bowl was 22 years ago: Super Bowl XXXVIII between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers in Houston. But I didn’t go to the game; I actually flew back to Tampa on Sunday morning and watched the Super Bowl while nursing a helluva hangover.
Which meant, I missed my big opportunity to see Janet Jackson’s boob. (Oh well.)
Instead, I was in Houston during Super Bowl week for work.
My PR agency staged two media events: a Super Bowl tailgating competition between Carolina barbeque and New England lobster chowder, and a celebrity poker tournament that was emceed by Phil Gordon, the cohost of Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown, and featured celebs like Marcus Allen, Clyde Drexler, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Yanni, Kato Kaelin, and many others. (Eddie George was the winner: He beat Jerome Bettis at the final table.)
But the private parties? Good Lord!
I had an amazing time at an SFX agent party. It’s where I met Matt Light, then the left tackle for the Patriots, who told me, “Don’t tell Bill [Bellickick] I’m skipping curfew!”
Light ended up signing a deal with my PR agency a few months later. That’s how these things work: You shake hands, share a few cocktails, suck down a few shots, and hustle your way into a relationship.
I’m more of a sports fan than a celeb-watcher, so rubbing shoulders with those athletes was a ton of fun for me. The tallest human I’ve ever met was Ralph Sampson, who stood 7-foot-5, but the biggest human was Bryant McKinnie at the SFX party: McKinnie was 6-foot-8 and weighed 355 — with less body fat than me. The dude was simply enormous. (He looked less like a human and more like a George Lucas sci-fi creation.)
You never know who’ll you’ll run into. I bumped into ex-NWA rapper Ice Cube (who’s a tiny little guy). Ken Norton, Jr. gave me the cold shoulder, which was a bummer: I’m a Cowboys fan AND a boxing fan, so even if we didn’t talk about football, I would’ve loved to have listened to stories about his Pop. Jim Gray was a jerk. Most of the ESPN guys were a hoot: funny, off-color, and a whole lot of fun.
And I forget who was managing Yanni, but whoever he was, he’s a PR demigod: That year, Yanni was EVERYWHERE! It almost became a running joke, ‘cause every time we turned on TV, there was Yanni.
He was the unofficial mayor of Houston.
Because we absolutely, 100% tracked what all the other agencies were doing. Each year at the Super Bowl, that’s part of the gamesmanship that the public never sees: Everyone wants to throw the biggest, wildest, most attention-gathering parties.
Our tailgating party didn’t generate a ton of media attention, but then again, we really didn’t expect it would. If I remember right, the whole thing was sponsored by a tailgating company, and we had someone from Boston fly in with a gigantic lobster (at least, the shell), offering free samples of his award-winning lobster chowder. It was a cool visual.
I think the Carolina BBQ was more popular with the crowd, but that giant lobster was definitely more impressive. I kid you not, it was one of the biggest lobster shells I had ever seen.
It was the Bryant McKinnie of lobsters!
But we struck gold with the celebrity poker tournament: In 2004, the Texas Hold ‘Em poker craze was in full swing — and gaming companies were spending huge amounts of money to promote their brands. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but back then, gaming companies operated by a formula called Cost Per Player Acquisition.
Which meant, if the average player lost $50 a year on their site, they’d happily spend $49 to land him.
The crowd was so big at our poker tournament, the police had to turn fans away. It was standing room only. When all was said and done, we got more media attention than any other celebrity event in Houston — sans one.
The Playboy party.
We tried. We really, really tried! But at the time, nothing could touch the Playboy party.
It pissed me off, ‘cause I sorely wanted to be #1. In fact, losing to Playboy bugged me so much, while waiting for my flight back to Tampa, I couldn’t get it out of my head: Playboy. Poker. Playboy! Poker!
Hmm…
That’s how I came up with the idea of National Lampoon’s Strip Poker, which we filmed the following year at the Hedonism II resort in Jamaica. And the reason why I went with National Lampoon instead of Playboy was twofold:
- I didn’t want to attach my name to anything THAT risqué: Rated R content was as far as I was willing to go.
- From Playboy’s point of view, they didn’t really need me. (It’s not like I invented strip poker, so if they liked the idea, what would stop ‘em from cutting me out and doing it on their own?)
But Kato Kaelin, of all people, was working for National Lampoon at the time. We had struck a friendship at the Super Bowl, stayed in touch — and before long, my agency and his company signed a film deal.
And each year at the Super Bowl, there are thousands of stories just like mine — where crazy, inexplicable deals come together. I promise you, I’m not the only one with a wild story to tell.
‘Cause each year, some of the best Super Bowl stories have absolutely nothing to do with game.
