In Green Bay, Kareem Copeland noted a new Nike commercial promoting its association with Dick's Sporting Goods features Packers LB Clay Matthews "selling a young customer on buying a pair of Nike Vapor Carbon Fly cleats." Matthews runs around the store "slamming into displays to simulate 'blowing up plays.'" Matthews said, "It was unique, especially because they wanted, I did all my own stunts and stuff. I had to dive through balsa wood with explosions and stuff. I had a good time doing it. It’s fun doing those types of marketability aspects of the game now" (
GREEN BAY PRESS-GAZETTE, 8/11).
BRIDGE TO SUCCESS: In Atlanta, Doug Roberson noted golfer Charles Howell III's switch from Bridgestone irons to Mizuno following the '10 PGA Tour season has helped put him "on the verge of a career-best season in earnings." Howell after last season also switched to a Titleist ball, "which he hadn’t played since college at Oklahoma State." He said, “I looked at all my stuff at the end of last year and wanted to go to the best equipment of everything. I had always played what I felt was really good in college with that product. I wanted to get back to it and see how things would go" (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 8/11).
HEARING THE RORS: CNBC's Darren Rovell belives that golfer Rory McIlroy "can do some deal" after indicating he plans to take up his PGA Tour card for '12, though McIlroy "doesn't have much body space." Rovell: "He has got to win majors. He has got to win another major, certainly. And then he’s got to rip it up on the PGA Tour to get another, I'd say, five million bucks a year” (“Morning Drive,” Golf Channel, 8/12).
STOP HORSING AROUND: In California, Jeff Nahill reports people still are "talking about an ad placed in last weekend's Daily Racing Form" that asked horse owners and trainers to pay attention to jockey Patrick Valenzuela and give him "mounts at Del Mar." Some suggested that Valenzuela, or "someone associated with the jockey, placed the ad." But DRF Western Ad Rep Jon Lindo said that "it was a fan who placed the ad." Valenzuela's agent Tom Knust: "It was well meant, but it was done the wrong way. It was stupid" (NORTH COUNTY TIMES, 8/12).
