Car Insurance Company Fails in Attempt to Court Athlete for Ad

By: Frank D’Alessandro, Free Agent News Syndicate

(LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA) Mercury Insurance is known for their commercials where a man insists their rates are incredibly low because the company is run by extraterrestrials from the planet Mercury. So when the company asked Los Angeles Clippers point guard Sam Cassell to star in an ad promoting the great rates they offer, the NBA star was more than offended.

“Sam was mad because he thinks they wanted him to do the ad because he seems to look like what people say is ‘an alien’,” says Cassell’s agent Murphee Howard. “If so, it is a misrepresentation of my client, and I, and my client, will have none of that.”

Mercury Insurance insists that they had no plans to make any comparison of Cassell’s appearance to that of an alien in the commercial. They just wanted Cassell to promote their insurance and state that it’s a bargain.

“It was going to be a simple commercial where Cassell just appears and says something promoting the company,” says Michelle Yellen. “We would not do anything to harm the image of a potential client.”

Cassell was not available for comment.

[J.B. Says: What next, Chris Kaman doing a Geico commercial? This story is fictitious since I’m sure Sam Cassell has a sense of humor about him looking like an extraterrestrial and would probably love to make some easy cash doing a commercial for the likes of Mercury Insurance. If I was his agent, I’d say ‘Beam him up!’]