An executive with GNC says the NFL told him on Monday that the commercial spot the company had prepared for Super Bowl LI will not run on Fox's broadcast Sunday.
Jeff Hennion, GNC's executive vice president and chief marketing and e-commerce officer, said Fox first told him Monday that the 30-second ad, which has a market rate of $5 million, could not run because the company sells products that contain two of the 162 substances banned by the NFL -- synephrine and DHEA.
"We have told the network it may not air in Super Bowl or any NFL programming," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said. "This is consistent with our policies that prohibit the advertising of supplements."
Hennion said he was told the NFL didn't like the GNC logo -- which was used in the spot and is in the form of a pill bottle -- because the league was concerned the logo, when shown quickly on television, could be mistaken for GMC, the automaker.