Patrick Michels

​Let the branding begin as we transition from Super Bowl ads to NBA All-Star Week advertisers. Here's a sneak peak at what to expect over the next few days as Dallas (and some place called Arlington?) becomes a city-sized billboard hawking everything from T-Mobile to Gatorade to Foot Locker to Auto Trader to HP products. Says the NBA's executive veep of marketing partnerships, "All-Star Weekend happens to be one of the biggest pieces of our assets, the reason being it's a place where a huge number of fans gather: avid, casual and those who are just interested because this is the one time of the year where the best players on earth are together." Which is why Taco Bell's giving away free tacos from the back of a purple truck. Or is that just a hoax?