Even if you’re not an NBA fan, you may have heard of the Kardashian Kurse: the fantastical yet consistent phenomenon in which NBA players who date Kardashians or Jenners lose their careers in the process.
Even if it can’t be proven, the curse has been fodder for Reddit debates and even serious statistical analysis.
Now, it’s the theme of Fanatics Sportsbook’s Super Bowl 60 ad starring Kendall Jenner, released on Tuesday.
The 30-second ad—the betting platform’s first in the Big Game—is the work of Fanatics Studios, an in-house venture between the brand and entertainment studio OBB media.
If part of the Kardashian women’s cultural endurance stems from their ability to poke fun at themselves, then the power of self effacement is in full effect here.
“Haven’t you heard the internet says I’m cursed? Any basketball player who dates me kinda hits a… rough patch,” says Jenner in the mock-instructional spot about “betting on the right guy.”
The 30-year-old model gives viewers a tour of various big-ticket toys—swimming pool, classic car, private jet—all amassed via her former boyfriends. Not by dating them, but by betting on them—or, perhaps, against them.
In the spot, Jenner explains “how she’s turned her rumored effect on men into winning bets on Fanatics Sportsbook,” according to a press release.
After Jenner announces that she’s diversified her wagering into football, the ad touts an adjacent promotion called “Bet on Kendall,” which will let fans follow Jenner’s Super Bowl picks and then bet with or against her. The feature goes live after she discloses her choice team at midnight on January 28.
Getting back to that Kurse, believers point to the career stumbles of James Harden and Rashad McCants following their romances with Khloe Kardashian. Kendall Jenner has been romantically linked to no fewer than seven NBA stars, including Ben Simmons, Devin Booker, and Blake Griffin—but in the Super Bowl ad, she refers only to boyfriend numbers 1, 2, and 3.
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Considering that Lamar Odom, married to Khloe Kardashian from 2009 to 2016, battled serious drug addiction and was discovered unconscious in a Nevada brothel in 2015, the curse isn’t always good joke material. Fortunately, the ebullience of the Super Bowl can suspend conventions for a night.
In a statement, Fanatics Betting and Gaming CMO Selena Kalvaria lauded Jenner’s ironic humor, saying she “transforms the lore of the Kardashian Kurse into something playful, participatory, and unmistakenly of the moment.”
The ad may also represent something of a redemption for Jenner, who starred in a disastrous 2017 ad, in which she singlehandedly relieves America’s racial tensions with a can of Pepsi.
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