The Top 25 Hilarious Bad Athlete Commercials

For the first time in my young life, youtube has let me down.  I cannot find any video of this shit show, which those who have seen it are calling this stage performance in the history of stages or performing. 

Apparently Hamilton was playing the role of Apollo in Fires of Anatolia, a show about the Trojan War. Yet, he was dressed in his racing suit.  Maybe I was asleep in history class, because I missed the part where Greek gods were depicted as walking billboards for not yet created companies like Vodaphone and Hugo Boss.  Both Hamilton and Fires of Anatolia, are sponsored by Vodaphone, so the higher ups thought that it would be a great idea to merge their two interests.  Here are some live action shots of the F1 Champ doing his best impression of everyone’s favorite Broadway star, Nathan Lane:

In all fairness to Lewis, he is not alone, athletes are constantly making asses of themselves in movies, in commercials and pretty much whenever they are in front of a camera.  Personally, I love the awkward athlete commercial, so in honor of Mr. Hamilton, we break down the 27 worst athlete commercials of all time. ( We tried for 25, but the extra two were too good to leave off)

27. Pete Rose – Aqua Velva - Let’s start off with these two classics

26. Ray Lewis – Eastern Automotive- Eastern Automotive made this commercial a success because they let Ray play to his strengths, namely yelling, and intimidating people into doing things.

25. Ironhead Hayward – Zest – While a shirtless Craig was a welcome site for the lovely ladies that fill Arrowhead Stadium on Sundays, I was left unconvinced that Craig actually used that “lather builder.”

24. Jerry Rice – Zaxby’s Chicken – I think the “I’m Jerry Rice and I’m a football player,” should be substituted with “I’m Jerry Rice, and I was on Dancing with the Stars.”  With everybody and their sister watching that garbage these days, combined with the fact that Jerry doesn’t play football anymore, I think Zaxby’s could move for legs and thighs playing to Jerry’s dance moves.

23. Colby Amstrong and Maxime Talbot – ANL Motorsales – I don’t expect these guys to be budding Lawrence Olivier’s, but I do expect that they do more than one take before they put the commercial on television.

22. Arnold Palmer and O.J. Simpson – Can you imagine the fun that you could have on a vacation with O.J. Simpson and Arnold Palmer?  Also, has there ever been another commercial featuring a seven time major winner and a double murderer? My guess is no, but I’ll checking looking.

21. Ron Cey, Darryl Dawkins and Tom White – Wheaties –

20. David Robinson – Nike – I can’t believe I almost forgot about the “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” commercials.  I guess it was about 18 years ago though, since Gary Payton is a rookie in this commercial.

19. Brady Quinn – Subway and EAS – First of all Brady, you aren’t busy on Sundays, not at all in fact.  Your eight pass attempts last season are evidence of that lack of busyness.  The EAS commercial is just as good.  His entire work out consists of running on a treadmill and then imagining that he was doing something tougher  than running on a treadmill.  It is going to take a little bit more than that to beat out Derrick Anderson.

18. Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, Mark Aguirre, Bernard King – Converse – When athletes rap, we can always expect disastrous consequences, this is no exception:

17. Zoel Zumaya – Comcast – If they could have only kept Joel Zumaya in the studio and not let him get anywhere near Guitar Hero or falling boxes.

16. Magic Johnson, Ann Myers – 7-Up –

15. Shane Battier, Dikembe Mutombo, Steve Francis – Houston Children’s Museum – Mutombo sounds a lot more like Chewbaca than a dinosaur.  Although, Mutombo actually lived concurrently with dinosaurs, so he may have some solid insight on how they sound.

14. Magic Johnson –Public Service Announcement – If only he would have heeded this advice when it came to dirty, skanky Laker groupies.

13. Gerald Wilkins – Nike – Gerald gets all of nine words in this commercial, but he makes each one count.

12. Patrick Ewing – Adidas – I think this is the only shoe commercial in history where there is absolutely no basketball being played.  In lieu of the basketball, we are treated to a gratuitous Patrick Ewing ass shot at the end of the commercial.

11. Sammy Sosa / Don Baylor – High Heat Baseball –

10. Magic Johnson – KFC - This guy was in an unbelievable amount of terrible commercials.  Although, I do believe that NBA Jam stole their trademark “He’s on Fire,” from this spot:

9. John Elway – Wsyi Wyg – I watched this commercial several times and I still don’t know if this entire commercial was about John Elway’s wiener.

8. Emmitt Smith, Walt Frazier, Keith Hernandez – Just for Men – These commercials were terrible to begin with and Emmitt took them to the next level.

7. Carson Palmer – John Morrell Sausage – I have to believe they anticipated the large number of potential penis jokes that would be made at the expense of this commercial.

6. Eagleman – Car Insurance – This isn’t really a sports commercial, but the Eagle does kind of look like a Philadelphia Eagle, so I’ll allow it.

5. Larry Bird – Chardon Jeans – How much could Chardon Jeans have possible paid Bird to do this commercial? My guess? Six free pairs of hip huggers and all the tail he could put down while he was on the set.

4. The Boston Celtics – Scotch N’ Sirloin Restaurant – The image of Robert Parrish breaking the lobster in half and the saying, “Lobster,” and then nothing else will haunt my dreams for years to come:

3. Roger Clemens – Zest – Only Roger’s wife and a fifteen year old Mindy McCready have seen Roger this exposed:

2. Multiple NFL Players – Diet Coke (30 second mark) – My god

1. Jonathon Ogden – Gebco Insurance – If the first wasn’t bad enough, he made another. Try to avoid listening to his haunting laughter near the end of the commercial.

The Angry T

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