Last August, we were introduced to a 12-year old boy named Nathan, who had already fulfilled the dream of most professional athletes by appearing in his very own Nike commercial. However, the theme of the commercial brought the guy a little more attention than he had expected, because he hadn’t taken into account that people on the Internet will fight about anything. Politics? Fight. Kate Upton? Fight. The Doritos Loco taco is better than the Volcano taco? You bet your ass that’s a fight.

The fight around Nathan, though, had several faces, including those who thought that Nike was simply exploiting an overweight boy for its “Find Your Greatness” campaign, those who think Nathan’s story was inspiring and wanted to encourage him, and those who just have really tiny penises and wanted to prove it by calling a kid fat. So how did this all play out for Nathan? Let’s check in with London, Ohio’s most famous son.

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When Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy hit the range, no cup is safe.

“When Tiger Woods starts texting you, no cup is safe!” And other jokes!

Here’s the latest commercial form Nike, the first to feature Rory McIlroy, the number one golfer in the world, as the Dennis Mitchell to Tiger’s Mr. Wilson. It’s a reinvention of the McDonald’s classic, “The Showdown,” and if this campaign ends with Rory playing golf with the Looney Tunes, we’ll know it’s been a success.

You can check out the clip below, courtesy of Shane Bacon over at Devil Ball Golf. Or, you know, wait a few weeks and watch it during every commercial break for three months. Your call.

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There’s nothing like turning our attention to the BCS National Championship Game with a little game of what I like to call “Who’s Got the Sports Karma?” This is where I compare both teams – in this case the No. 1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide – by not using boring stuff like statistics and offensive or defensive matchups, but by what they’ve done to earn our “Awww”s and “That’s cool”s. And as you can see in that banner pic, ‘Bama is already going after one of our soft spots – the troops.

Specifically, Tide fan Justin Crisler founded an effort known as “Tide for Troops”, and through his Facebook group “Can I get a Roll Tide?” he was able to make 180 shirts bearing his group’s rally cry to deliver to a Huntsville, AL unit that deploys to Guantanamo Bay this weekend. Additionally, Crisler was able to send shirts along to the 167th Infantry Battalion in Afghanistan so they could cheer on their beloved Tide as well.

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Here’s Nike’s new ‘Hockey Is Ours’ ad. Not included: Gary Bettman’s ‘LOL, Hockey Is Mine’ rebuttal. (via Puck Drunk Love)

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Links

The Biggest, Most Incredible, Unbelievable, Shouted About Sports Moments Of 2012 |With Leather|

15 Famous Songs You Might Be Surprised To Learn Were Banned On The Radio |UPROXX|

The 12 Other Albums You Should’ve Listened to This Year |Smoking Section|

A Definitive Gallery Of The NFL Network’s Biggest Loudmouth, Warren Sapp |Kissing Suzy Kolber|

Birthday Suits FTW: Television Actresses You Were Likely To See Naked in 2012 |Warming Glow|

SUPERCUT: The Year’s Worst Movies Review Themselves |Film Drunk|

Funny, Sexy, And Awesome Cosplay Of The Week |Gamma Squad|

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Mike Wilbon’s arch nemesis Dan Steinberg posted a series of pictures from the new Nike store in Washington DC yesterday, including the one that you’re looking at above. Apparently (and naturally) the store is a massive tribute to all that is DC sports culture, but none of that matters right now, because of that picture up there. What the hell is going on in that picture? That’s Ray Rice trying to tackle Brian Orakpo. WHY???

Of course, it shouldn’t surprise us that this conversation is already alive and well at Reddit, so I will let them ask and answer the big question. First, the thread’s creator and Washington Redskins fan “RamsesToo” states our frustration:

Display at the new Nike Store in D.C. Ray Rice is trying to tackle Brian Orakpo because logic.

Then, Seattle Seahawks fan “guardpost” counters:

Orakpo is running with one of Flacco’s turnovers and Ray Rice is trying to make the tackle. I feel like that’s not much of a logical stretch.

That’s a good point. HOWEVER, there’s one problem with that idea and “RamsesToo” is on top of it…

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During the 2012 Summer Olympics, it was reported that security at the London venues was instructed to crack down on any people who tried to attend events while wearing recognizable logos of companies that weren’t exclusive sponsors. That was a very nice way of saying that McDonald’s owned the fry monopoly and Coke wanted to kick out anyone wearing Pepsi logos, which would have sucked for me because my whole wardrobe is nothing but Mountain Dew shirts.

This was a little unfair to the average Joe, Boris or Ming cheering on their countries, because as some surveys showed, nobody knew which companies were even sponsoring the Olympics. In fact, 37% of the 1,034 people who took part in an online survey believed that Nike was a sponsor, when it fact it wasn’t – Nike does, however, sponsor Team USA and other countries so it didn’t matter – and this just basically proved what we already knew – Nike is really awesome at marketing.

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