With the upcoming launch of Fox Sports’ potential ESPN rival Fox Sports 1 on August 17, the brand has chosen Pereira & O’Dell New York as lead creative agency for its 24-hour sports network. This move expands a relationship that began in the spring as P&O’D had already been working on a project basis on 1-2 assignments for Fox Sports 1. In a statement, Fox Sports EVP/head of marketing Robert Gottlieb says, “We’ve never brought in an outside creative agency on a continuous basis as we have significant in-house capabilities. With Pereira & O’Dell  we have found a great partner who  can operate as a creative think-tank as we enter the market with Fox Sports 1. We’re thrilled with their  initial work and look forward to what’s    coming down the pipeline.”

What’s coming down the pipeline includes not only work for upcoming Fox Sports 1 shows like Fox Sports Live, Fox Football Daily and Crowd Goes Wild but a big campaign supporting Super Bowl XLVIII, which will take place in New York. While Pereira & O’Dell gets down to work, its newest client is still trying to iron out deals with Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and Dish.

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea that Fox Sports covers college football throughout the season. However, a quick bit of research (Wikipedia) informed be that Fox actually has attained TV broadcasting rights for the Pac-10 last year. And, it would appear Fox’s marketing team has decided to make Gus Johnson the network’s star commentator for the NCAA season.

Now, I’m a little familiar with Gus, but I’ve never thought of him as a particularly excitable broadcaster. But, apparently Johnson is in the process of culminating this persona in two new spots from Fox Marketing and Biscuit Filmworks. The first, “Bomb Squad” (above), features Gus literally blowing up and possibly maiming a group of innocent passersby.

The second spot, “The Gus Effect,” aims to convince young males that watching a game commented on by Gus Johnson is a totally awesome experience, bro. Not only to you get cage dancers, you get new addition to the Fox team Erin Andrews staring at you while you cheer your team on. She doesn’t look a bit sad that ABC/ESPN decided not to renew her contract, does she? Credits after the jump.

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Believe it or not, the NFL regular season is already more than halfway over. Yes, it’s depressing, and at this rate, Randy Moss will have played for six different teams by the time we reach the playoffs. So, we look toward the end of the seasons as America’s most watched (and most annoying) NFL Sunday team shows the differences between the “Have and Have Nots” in this campaign previewing Fox’s coverage of the Super Bowl.

As is the case with most former professional athletes, a lot of ordinary and mundane tasks can come down to bragging rights. So, while Joe Buck, Curt Menefee and Jay Glazer may leer in jealousy at their Super Bowl-winning counterparts, they know that their lives drove them to be journalists instead of professional athletes, and while press passes do come with their benefits, they automatically mean getting to party with Usher or Hugh Laurie. Also, we get why Laurie’s there as his show House is on Fox, by why is Usher there? Was he just in the neighborhood?

Basically, the kind of folks who find the NFL on FOX funny and relevant will truly love this campaign. These are the same folks who think Howie Long is a studly stud, Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman are gods among men for restoring the Dallas Cowboys to greatness, Michael Strahan‘s sitcom should have been on longer and Terry Bradshaw was great in Failure to Launch. Still, I have yet to find anyone who thinks Frank Caliendo is funny or entertaining.

Two more spots and credits after the jump.
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