Moments before the start of Sunday’s Super Bowl, the NFL demanded that Las Vegas Fox-affiliate KVVU scrap a handful of local ads that it planned to air during the game.
The NFL, ever-diligent in trying to distance itself from gambling, forced KVVU to dump five 30-second spots from Station Casinos, according to AOL News. Station Casinos owns 18 casinos in southern Nevada and was set to pay KVVU a reported $360,000 to broadcast the spots during the big game.
“We had a conversation before the game with Fox which informed the station it could not air the spots,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told AOL News, confirming that the league blocked KVVU from airing the ads.
Over the weekend, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Station Casinos planned to launch a new, “We Love Locals” marketing campaign with the Super Bowl spots. Following the article, a Las Vegas blogger pointed out that the ads would potentially violate the NFL’s policy on commercials airing during the Super Bowl.
KVVU has not yet responded to TVSpy’s requests for comment.
Here’s an excerpt from the NFL’s policy, as of 2009, regarding Super Bowl commercials from gambling organizations (via):
We notified our network partners that we will not object to ads airing during our games for any tourism destination, including Las Vegas.
Only tourism destinations (e.g., Nevada, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe) are permitted. The prohibition of ads for specific hotels, casinos and other institutions that house gambling will remain in place.