Great Sports Ads: There aren't rules. But there are ways.

Greatest sports commercial ever? Debatable. Lotta great ones. The lists are like implants in LA. Everyone’s got (at least) one.

The hard part is getting on one of those lists. How do you make a great sports commercial?

MJ’s in a lot of the great ones, and Tiger, too. Just use one of those guys, right? Not so fast. Just having a superstar doesn’t guarantee squat. If anything, it makes it more challenging, because you have such an amazing property at your fingertips with such incredible potential, and the stakes are raised.

So it’s not so easy. Seems like it should be, but it’s kind of like making really grilled cheese. Much like the true experts know how to work the grill so the bread is the right crispyness and the cheese is the perfect meltyness, there are ways.

Ways, I said. Not rules. You could even say principles.

The first one may be as obvious as it is immutable and unshakable. And as close to a rule as it gets:

Authenticity. Authenticity, Authenticity, Authenticity.

When I see sports advertising, I want to pick out details that prove that the brand knows it’s stuff. I want to see a real player from a real opposing team, or a certain stadium or ref or umpire who I recognize. There’s nothing I hate more than uniforms that came straight from the prop department. Or opponents who get chosen from a casting session instead of plucked off a basketball court.

There’s no detail too small to ignore. It takes unrelenting obsession. Fanaticism? Sure. Compulsiveness? absolutely. All in the interest of getting it right. If you aren’t all about that, go make ads for soft drinks.

But who’s to say what’s authentic and what’s not? Good question. More on that to come.