NBA Finals Game 7 Tonight – NBA-Related Candy Today!

It’s Game 7 of the 2013 NBA Finals and tonight the San Antonio Spurs or the Miami Heat will  come away with an NBA championship.  In recognition of that, I selected a number of NBA-related candy packages from my collection to share.

First up is a candy box from the late 1970’s from a company called Gum Products.  They would market these candy-coated peanuts under a baseball license as well as comic book heroes Superman and Spider-Man.  Here’s their NBA “Slam Dunk” offering:

Gum Products – Slam Dunk – candy-coated peanuts – candy box – 1970’s

Throughout the 1990’s, the Nestle company was an NBA partner which resulted in a number of related Nestle Crunch wrappers.  The first I’m showing was a special edition “NBA Bar”, meaning that the actual chocolate bar would be imprinted with one of the then-27 NBA teams:

Nestle – Crunch – Special Edition NBA Bar – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1993

Here’s a more typical promotion:

Nestle – Crunch – NBA Number 1 Fan instant win game – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1993

Nearly a decade later, Nestle had opted for a more celebrity-filled association when they featured Shaquille O’Neal on wrappers:

Nestle – Crunch – Sweet Seats with Shaq – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 2001

Nestle – Crunch – Sweet Seats with Shaq – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 2001

But this wasn’t Shaq’s first confectionery rodeo, as he had been gracing Nielson bar wrappers up in Canada during the 1990’s.

Nielson – Shaq’s Snaqs trade ad – July 1995

I have one of those Mr. Big wrappers in my collection (there were others – but I only have this example):

Canada – Neilson Mr Big – Shaq Snaq Meet Shaq – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1996

And just for the sake of comparison, here’s a standard Mr. Big wrapper from the time:

Canada – Neilson Mr Big – chocolate candy bar wrapper – 1990’s

And that’s everything I could find in my collection that is basketball-related.  I hope you enjoyed the assortment, and I hope that tonight’s Game 7 turns out to be one of the greats, whoever wins.

See you next time!