One of the most highly anticipated aspects of any Super Bowl is the creative commercials that major corporations debut during this time. For years, this platform is where the alcohol industry gained points with the average consumer, using humorous ads to subliminally convince them that booze should be a part of any sporting event as long as it is consumed responsibly. But marijuana does not get the same opportunities.<\/p>\n
Even though marijuana legalization is taking shape on a reasonably large scale across the country, cannabis, a multi-billion dollar industry, remains a pariah in the world of professional sports. Not even those companies trying to spread the word about the potential medicinal components of the plant can seem to catch a break is the debacle rooted in conflicting states and federal law.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from Bloomberg indicates that CBS, the television network set to air Super Bowl LIII in the coming weeks, has rejected a 30-second advertisement proposed by a medical marijuana company.<\/p>\n Now, the ad was not designed to hypnotize football-hungry fans into putting down their beers and start smoking weed, it was merely intended to give the population a quick crash course in cannabis medicine. More specifically, the ad was generated \u201cto create an advocacy campaign for constituents who are being lost in the dialogue,\u201d Acreage Holdings President George Allen\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the new source. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to compete with the amount of attention something gets when it airs during the Super Bowl,\u201d he added, saying the company was \u201csomewhat unsurprised\u201d by the network\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n Showing a cannabis ad during the Super Bowl would have been just as historic as it would have been a giant leap past the prohibition standard. Although more than 30 states have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, the federal government still considers cannabis to be a dangerous Schedule I drug. In fact, it is only due to Uncle Sam\u2019s lame classification of the herb that it is next to impossible for cannabis commerce to mingle with or even get into a full-blown, slobbering love affair with members of traditional commerce. Weed is still considered an\u00a0experiment<\/i>\u00a0at many levels.<\/p>\n The\u00a0NFL<\/a>\u00a0itself, which is worth more than $8 billion, continues to ban its players from using marijuana, even if it is just to prevent them from using prescription painkillers and other pharmaceuticals that have been putting people in early graves by the tens of thousands over the past few years. So, allowing a television spot to air during the league\u2019s championship event, one where roughly 111 million people could call them on their hypocrisy, was probably never even a consideration. But Acreage, which is considered one of the most valuable cannabis company in the U.S., went for it anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cWe certainly thought there was a chance,\u201d Allen said. \u201cYou strike when the chance of your strike has the probability of success \u2014 this isn\u2019t a doomed mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Some NFL players spoke out against the league for not accepting the Acreage ad. \u201cKeep pumping the booze ads, guys,\u201d Eagles defensive lineman Chris Long tweeted Tuesday, after news broke of the decision.<\/p>\n But old habits die hard, and alcohol is big business in the NFL.<\/p>\n In 2015, Anheuser-Busch InBev paid\u00a0$1.4 billion<\/a>\u00a0to become the league\u2019s primary sponsor. It was a worthwhile investment. Some statistics show that around\u00a0325 million gallons of beer<\/a>\u00a0are consumed by Americans on Super Bowl Sunday alone \u2013 enough for every man, woman and child to have a gallon.<\/p>\n And while advertising revenue is reportedly\u00a0down<\/a>\u00a0across the board during regular season games, according to Standard Media Index, ad inventory for the Super Bowl LIII is over\u00a090 percent sold out<\/a>. So, rejecting a cannabis company did not cost CBS any money. There is always a client looking to make a buy during this time slot.<\/p>\n Still, the fact that the cannabis industry is prepared to play in the big leagues shows that the U.S. is really not that far off from seeing pot ads airing during major sporting events. Commercials airing during the Super Bowl are some of the most expensive ad buys in the arena of professional sports. Companies have been known to drop more than\u00a0$5 million for a 30-second spot<\/a>, leading to networks raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue every year for less than four hours of air time.<\/p>\n But all it is going to take for marijuana to be given the same freedom to advertise products during the Super Bowl and other sporting events is for Congress to end marijuana prohibition once and for all. Although league representatives would never divulge plans to support the cannabis industry (i.e., take its money) as long as weed remains an outlaw substance at the federal level, that will start to change once the government deems the green as legal as beer and tobacco \u2014 you can bet on it.<\/p>\n Once that happens, the only question left will be whether sports organization will allow marijuana to be sold in stadiums and venues the way beer is sold now. Some pro-pot athletes say it \u201cwill never happen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially if it is vapor\u2026especially if there is going to be smoke,\u201d\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0former NBA star Al Harrington. \u201cWe don\u2019t want smoke in our arenas and different things like that. So, I don\u2019t think that will ever happen.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think the NFL will ever accept cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Super Bowl Still Not Ready For Marijuana<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
One of the most highly anticipated aspects of any Super Bowl is the creative commercials that major corporations debut during this time. For years, this platform is where the alcohol industry gained points with the average consumer, using humorous ads to subliminally convince them that booze should be a partContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3922,50,2187,7253,170,969,7254,5363,7255],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32328,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32327\/revisions\/32328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Super Bowl Still Not Ready For Marijuana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"