Ad of the Day: Dick’s Sporting Goods Scores Again—on the Football Field

Pretty much out of nowhere, Dick's Sporting Goods has suddenly been coming up with some of the most impressive sports-related commercials, uh … I'm going to go with "ever," actually.

This new football commercial, and the previous baseball spot, both made by Anomaly and director Derek Cianfrance, are little masterpieces of between-play tension that use only the space most other sports ads leave out.

The point is blindingly obvious, but only once it's made: This is where the teamwork happens. The quarterback calling the plays. The coach sending players in and out. The furious guard on the offensive team shouting at his defensive counterpart, "Next play! Next play!" It's reminiscent of the actual process of playing football in a way that few ads—hell, few movies—really are. And it reminds you what's so much fun about the whole process: the rush you get right before you try to do something you've been planning for a while; the nervous high of hearing somebody yell for the snap. It's most of what we actually remember from the sport, as opposed to the long runs or the great kicks.

Like the baseball ad, this spot is done in a single, Robert Altman-style take, with volume coming up on the players as they pan in from the right, yelling encouragement at each other and threats at the other team. Unlike the baseball spot, it's louder, it's busier, and best of all, it contains absolutely no music. The closest thing we get to a dominant sound, in fact, is the QB screaming for the snap at the end and then the empty noise over the branding.

Kudos to agency director. This here is a 40-yard pass.

CREDITS

Client: Dick's Sporting Goods

Agency: Anomaly

Chief Creative Officer, Partner: Mike Byrne

Creative Director: Seth Jacobs

Creative: Taylor Twist, Mike Warzin

Executive Producer, Head of Production: Andrew Loevenguth

Producer: Matt Flaherty

Business Director: Damien Reid

Account Supervisor: Ji You

Production Company: Radical

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Executive Producers: Frank Scherma, Donna Portaro, Tommy Turtle

Head of Production: Cathy Dunn

Production Supervisor: Rebecca Deelo

Director of Photography: Peter Deming

First Assistant Director: Mark Frishman

Art Director: Timmy Hills

Costume Designer: Jim Mancusso

Casting, Football Supervisor: Mike Fischer

Editorial: Rock Paper Scissors

Editor: Biff Butler

Executive Producer: Eve Kornblum

Producer: Melanie Gagliano

Postproduction: Company 3

Telecine: Tom Poole

Executive Producer: Tara Dowd

Visual Effects, Flame: Framestore

Executive Producer: James Razzall

Senior Producer: Graham Dunglinson

Visual Effects Supervisor: Alex Thomas

Visual Effects, Comp Supervisor: Sharron Marcussen

Computer Graphics Supervisor: James Dick

Flame Artists: Raul Ortego, Tom Leckie

Sound Design: Trinitite

Sound Designer: Brian Emrich

Sound Mix: Sound Lounge

Mixer: Rob Sayers

Music: Soup Music

Music Composer: Andy Huckvale

Track Name: "Sawtooth"