Former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is getting sued for pretending to be struck by lightning.
Allow me to explain.
The future NFL Hall of Famer was shooting a commercial for online sports gambling site PointsBets. Brees and a marketing team traveled down to the Catatumbo River in Venezuela, which is home to a never-ending lightning storm. This setting was chosen because the purpose of the advertisement was to promote lightning bets.
The first step of the ad involved showing Brees supposedly getting set up by the advertisement team to say something while on camera, but that all went south when the video showed the quarterback getting “struck” by lightning.
Estrella de la @NFL @drewbrees fue impactado por un relámpago en el Catatumbo mientras grabábamos un comercial al sur del lago de Maracaibo. Pasó hace unas horas. Más información en breve... pic.twitter.com/b8PQdRpdtN
— Rafael Hernández (@sincepto) December 2, 2022
Shortly after the clip went viral on social media, which caused many to wonder if Brees was still alive, PointsBets released Part 2 of the ad, which included Brees’ pitch for the lightning bets.
Time to let you in on a little fun we've had with @drewbrees guys. He's alive and well and "buzzing" for a weekend of free bets. Keep your eyes on our channels all weekend for bet drops for US vs. Netherlands, College Football and NFL. pic.twitter.com/vhnLm5S0Cw
— PointsBet Sportsbook (@PointsBetUSA) December 2, 2022
All of this was a clever way to snag people’s attention and make them more likely to use PoinsBets gambling service, which is the purpose of any advertisement. But one environmentalist took this campaign a little too personally and decided to sue Brees for supposedly defaming the Catatumbo lightning phenomenon.
“It demonstrates a disinformation campaign about one of the most extraordinary meteorological phenomena on the planet, turned into advertising merchandise without any scruples,” Erik Quiroga, an environmentalist who has been studying this natural phenomenon for nearly three decades, said.
What exactly is the disinformation? It's already common knowledge that this was just an advertisement and that Brees wasn’t actually struck, meaning everyone knows this was just a harmless advertisement.
Leave it to an environmentalist to get butthurt over something like this. Hopefully Brees legal team, or some non-nonsense judge can make lightning-quick work of this case -- pun very much intended.
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