When I started this newsletter, before I had any subscribers or concepts, I wrote a post about the characters you'd see in commercial breaks during Golden State Valkyries game on KPIX, the San Francisco Bay Area's local CBS affiliate. A lot has changed since then! The Valkyries sold out every home game. They made the playoffs (Let us not speak of what happened in the playoffs). There's a new CBA and now WNBA players get a living wage. And as for me, I realized one of my almae matres has a basketball team and I now have a...non-zero...subscriber base. Progress all around.

Even KPIX's broadcasts have shown growth. They no longer make rookie mistakes like calling Minnesota's team the "Linx." They got beloved local Kerith Burke to be the studio host and the special effects are better, except when they're not accidentally making her partially see-through. And best of all, instead of seeing the same half-dozen ads throughout the game, there's variety, featuring a larger rotating cast of characters I will come to despise, but, unlike last year, it's going to take more than half a game for it to happen.

In a lot of ways, the commercial mix is what you’d expect from a national broadcast, but with one glaring omission – no insurance ads. Jake, Flo, Doug, the gecko, the emu: they are all too terrified of some litigious blowhard in the Oakland Hills wildlife-urban interface buying a policy that will eventually lose them several million dollars when his McMansion inevitably burns down. California is a place where homeowners file for injunctions instead of just removing their highly flammable brush and eucalyptus trees.

I've been struggling with my summer writing project and wanted to write something nice and relaxing to get warmed up. So during last Tuesday's game against Portland, I kept track of all the ads I saw as the Valkyries cruised to a comfortable win and then rubbed it in by brutally tickling Carla Leite afterwards. With so much variety, I couldn't do a single ranking like I did last year, so I broke this year's ranking up into four categories, starting with:

Category 1: Sports Celebrities

5. Alex Ovechkin (Verizon)

Verizon lazily reused a commercial from hockey season where Ovechkin shows up at a minor league hockey game for no reason. One of the teams is called the Red Pandas, an unsettling reminder that Verizon could have hired a far more beloved sports celebrity for a far smaller fee.

4. Caitlin Clark (Xfinity Mobile)

CC shows up in random places, wearing a red Team USA jersey, and hits three-pointers as Petula Clark’s “Downtown” plays. Basketball is easy when you don’t have Veronica Burton guarding you! Ranks higher than Ovi because she is not, to my knowledge, a Vladimir Putin supporter. As least I assume so: I don’t have an encyclopedic list of all her endorsement deals. No guarantees.

3. Naomi Osaka (OLLY)

Talking about mental health is a good way for OLLY to avoid making any dubious claims about the efficacy of their supplements.

2. Sheryl Swoopes (WNBA)

She may be the G.O.A.T., but she’s no match for…

1. Goats (WNBA)

It's just not a fair fight.

Category 2: National Brands

5. Brian Scudamore (1-800-GOT-JUNK)

I’ve never seen an episode of Dragon’s Den, the Canadian version of Shark Tank, so I had no idea the dweeby guy in the 1-800-GOT-JUNK commercials was actually the CEO until they displayed his name and title on the screen. According to company legend, Scudamore fired everyone is his local Vancouver junk-hauling business because they weren't on board with his vision to expand it all the way across Canada and the U.S. I also would not be on board with that, so, fair.

4. Semi-competent dad (Sephora)

He gets the job done. He gets his daughter ready for the ballet recital. He even sort of knows the dance moves. He's not the target market.

3. Jackie the talking Gucci bag (The RealReal)

2. Talking Jimmy Choo shoes (The RealReal)

Upsetting. Click the link at your peril.

1. Rumi (Sephora)

Sells the dad a $30 bottle of hairspray for his approximately seven-year-old daughter. Now there's a saleswoman who can spot a mark.

Hall of Fame: MEAT SWEATS GUY (Kaiser Permanente)

The only returning characters from last season’s ranking are from Kaiser Permanente’s notorious MEAT SWEATS commercial and thus they are the first inductees into the KPIX COMMERCIAL HALL OF FAME. I will be inducting the main guy (who I decided was named Steve) and the off-screen Susan, who won’t stop looking at him as he suffers meat-sweat-induced paranoia. The Kaiser Permanente doctor, however, did not meet the standards for qualification. Steve is still getting the meat sweats twelve months later! Either the doc’s been doing a piss-poor job, or he hasn’t been able to prescribe a GLP-1 inhibitor yet because Kaiser’s bean counters are forcing him to prescribe less effective medications first.

Hall of Shame: Gubernatorial Candidates

You may have heard there was a primary election in California last week. God willing, one day the state will finish counting the votes! Tom Steyer, future governor by default Xavier Becerra, smarmy shitbag Matt Mahan, I'm so happy to not have to think about you for a while. The only good thing California Republicans have done this year decade is not waste their money advertising to the W audience.

Category 3: Cars

Not ranked: Jan (Toyota)

I’ve seen her during other KPIX games this season, but Toyota went with generic forgettable ads for the Fire game. Their judicious use of Laurel Coppock has meant that, although she's been in the public eye almost as long as fellow Groundling/Progressive spokeswoman Stephanie Courtney, she's still, at worst, a tolerable presence during the breaks.

5. Weirdos who can’t handle minor car issues (AAA)

I’m not sure precisely where the line between “this feels wrong” and “this is wrong” is demarcated, but these buffoons, who react to a flat tire by descending into dangerously cliched savagery, are extremely close to it.

4. Normal woman who has AAA (AAA)

Seems fine, except for her terrible choice in friends.

3. Mom (Mazda)

Does normal car commercial mom things, such as getting groceries, almost getting in an accident, and getting saved by her car's safety systems. True neutral.

2. Tow-truck driver (AAA)

Professionalism requires him to smile at the problematic antics of the non-AAA-having bozos, but his eyes let us know that he’s dying inside because he has to do it.

1. Ducklings (AAA)

In one of AAA’s other commercials, there are ducklings. Why they don’t just run this one all the time, I have no idea.

Category 4: Local Institutions

8. Various Randos (Presidio)

You wouldn't think the Presidio would need to advertise, and they hardly bothered to. This is in the style of halftime university ads showing a montage of all the things you can do there (hiking, golfing, gazing into a test tube at a big bridge, watching street dancers). The entire Presidio board was fired in April and replaced with tech-coded chuds, so forgetfully boring is probably the best we can hope for.

7. Dep. C. Watson (Alameda County Sheriff’s Office)

A search on Transparent California indicates that the $64,599 she earned in overtime pay is on the low end for a Deputy Sheriff II in the ACSO, so no unexpected complaints from me. The other deputies raking in far more overtime didn’t even film a commercial!

6. Various big winners (Chukchansi Gold)

Oversized novelty checks! So many oversized novelty checks! For the discerning gambler who wants to go 90% of the way to Yosemite but not actually visit Yosemite.

5. Caterpillar (California Academy of Sciences)

It's been a rough year at the California Academy of Sciences. In fictional developments, we never did find out if the best friends from last year's commercial are actually just friends or something more. In real news, beloved albino alligator Claude passed away in December and had his name co-opted by some computer company. This year they're going more lowkey with mellow narration and extreme close-ups of a caterpillar.

4. Chris Smith (Cresco)

Cresco is a construction equipment rental company with 19 locations in Northern California from "Redding to Gilroy." I have several theories as to why they choose to advertise during WNBA games that you can rent a bulldozer, and every single one of them is delightful.

3. Girls who kind of look like Miela Sowah and Ashten Prechtel (Court Builders Northern California)

The most targeted ad is for this company that makes custom basketball courts and now has a GSV-specific design. Their ad shows girls playing basketball, of course, and the main girls both resemble the Valks' current developmental players, neither of whom were on the roster when the commercial must have been filmed. Q-uite a bit of foresight there.

2. Unnamed women (Cache Creek Casino & Resort)

Chukchansi implies you're gonna win. The Lottery doesn't say you're going to win, only that you're going to have a fun time playing. Cache Creek Casino, however, comes surprisingly close to straight out saying you ain’t gonna win, so you should visit in order to a good time doing other stuff. So they show three women friends doing resort things like dining, golfing, going to the spa, and jumping in the pool. All the latest TripAdvisor reviews say their payouts are terrible, so that does seem like the only way you'll enjoy Cache Creek these days.

1. Guy in green jacket (California Lottery)

His crippling gambling addiction is funding California schools and leading his reflection to dance to Chaka Khan. And his jacket is cool. Good vibes all around!

And that’s the 2026 KPIX universe! Bug me until I start actual my summer writing project.