[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoVBzFChTlo&list=PLsXif5_f1oXGk3XNQGTPmIc6QhubMWiIw&index=3″ width=”640″]
Call it the brotherhood of the scrappers, as the hard-working Sider brothers, Mark and Jon, have managed to leverage their friendship with floor-burned NBA journeyman Brian Scalabrine to create a series of videos on behalf of their underdog sports drink Greater Than.
The series, which features a total of seven videos featuring the recently-retired-but-still-huge Scalabrine playing the hunter and the Siders (or, more specifically, their many cases of Greater Than) the prey, show the “White Mamba” on a quest to find the all-natural, coconut water-based sports drink all over Chicago. He’s fighting “The Man,” though — in this case the dark force is the NBA’s ironclad contract with PepsiCo’s Gatorade brand. Neither the Siders — portrayed as a pair of tracksuited Mario Brothers who leave the Greater Than “>” symbol all over Chitown — nor his local cashier are allowed to share the Greater Than goods with him.
Neither Scalabrine, who embraced his blue-collar image, nor the Sider brothers, who continue to push the brand to Chicago athletes, have taken their job too seriously to have fun and project a friendly image; for the Siders, at least, the hard work has been rewarded somewhat, as they recently signed a distribution deal with Chicago’s own Central Beverage.
As for Scalabrine, he also appears in the video as Abraham Lincoln, so he’s showing serious range in front of the camera — more so than he did on the floor, most NBA observers would agree.