What sports fan in Massachusetts wouldn’t want Hall of Famer David Ortiz as a party guest? That’s what we’ll see during the first quarter of Super Bowl 57 when the former Red Sox star appears in a commercial for DraftKings Sportsbook.
The 30-second spot for DraftKings will feature Big Papi and his pals Ludacris, Kevin Hart, Tony Hawk, Lisa Leslie, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, The Undertaker, and Emmitt Smith in a commercial conceived and produced by Hart and his company Hartbeat.
The commercial will appear in the first quarter of Super Bowl 57, which will be played on Sunday, Feb. 12 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on FOX and FOX Sports.
We don’t think it’s any coincidence DraftKings casted a Boston sports legend in a commercial that will air roughly a month before DraftKings Massachusetts is expected to launch. Brand ambassadors can often make the difference when customers pick their sportsbook app, and Ortiz is about as good a brand ambassador as you can get in Massachusetts.
Ortiz Is a Popular Pitchman for Many Brands in Retirement
Ortiz is not sitting in his home admiring his Hall of Fame career as one of baseball’s greatest clutch performers. Since he retired following the 2016 season, Ortiz has been active as a broadcaster for FOX Sports. He’s also seen in ads for Skechers, and he’s a pitchman for Performance Kitchen and others. This is the first appearance by the former Red Sox legend in ads for DraftKings.
The commercial depicts Hart hosting a Super Bowl party for many of his celebrity friends with a hook on their names that will be “Big” for Ortiz.
This will mark the third consecutive year that DraftKings has purchased an in-game Super Bowl ad. According to Mark Evans, the Executive Vice President of Ad Sales for FOX Sports, 30-second spots have sold for as much as $7 million for the upcoming Super Bowl. That’s a record for airtime during the premier event for commercials. Many casual sports fans watch the Super Bowl primarily for the ads.
Ortiz won three World Series titles with the Red Sox. He hit 541 home runs in his career, 483 of them in a Boston uniform. Perhaps not since Carl Yastrzemski did the franchise have a more popular star.
