All bets are off — if you’re Tom Brady!
That’s the hilarious premise for BetMGM’s Super Bowl ad, in which the GOAT is told he can’t bet on the sports betting app.
In PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek of the video, featuring Vince Vaughn and cameo appearances by Brady and hockey icon Wayne Gretzky, swingers star delivers bad news to the seven-time Super Bowl champion.
“BetMGM is for everyone who likes sports betting, everyone but Tom Brady,” deadpanned Vaughn.
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“Wait, what did I do?” asks an incredulous Brady, to which the actor replies, “It’s true you’ve won too much, Tom, you’ve let others have their turn.”
As a montage of would-be gamblers — including a jackass, a woman who thinks Brady is cute and Brady’s ex-nanny — ask Vaughn if they can use BetMGM, and he’s all right.
“As long as you’re not Tom Brady, you’re in,” he says.
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Even when the football legend, disguised in early 2000s denim as “Tim Birdie, the seven-time pool champion,” asks if he can use the bookie, Vaughn doesn’t fall for the scam.
“You already know the answer, why are you making us go through it,” says a bemused Vaughn — who dines with Gretzky as the GAP deemed eligible to use the site.
For ad creators, the opportunity to work with Brady was an easy bet.
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“Our core idea is centered around the fact that BetMGM is for everyone (as long as they’re of legal age!),” Alex Zamiar, group creative director at ad agency Highdive, tells PEOPLE. “When Tom Brady signed on, we wanted to tap into his legacy and personality and tell a story that had never been told before. Tom wins at everything he does, so the idea that he can’t win was very funny to us. Luckily he was game to make fun of himself and it took off from there.”
The ad’s creative team also relished the opportunity to say no to Tom by upping the ante with another legendary athlete — Gretzky.
“The Super Bowl is all about surprising people and subverting expectations,” said Highdive’s Johnathan Richman. “So after we had the idea to exclude Tom Brady from betting with BetMGM, we liked the idea of twisting Tom even more by allowing another living legend to participate with a cameo from Wayne Gretzky.”
And Zamiar points to the Brady-as-pool-shark scene as a metaphor for the ad itself.
“When we were shooting the pool scenes, Tom drowned almost every shot,” Zamiar said. “That guy is really good at everything, that’s why we think advertising is so relative, at least the rest of us can have something he can’t.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education