Middlefield Company Provides Props for Super Bowl Ads

A local company had a role in two Bridgestone commercials that aired during Super Bowl XLVI.

Northeast Sports Timing Service, Inc, whose headquarters is located on West Road in Middlefield, provided timing equipment featured in each of the company's two :30 second ads.

The commericials - which reportedy cost $3.5 million apiece - feature NFL greats Troy Aikman and Deion Sanders and NBA players Tim Duncan and Steve Nash introducing the company's new tire technolog.

Look closely and you'll see scoreboards and cameras provided by NESTS.

"When you see the commercial you can't miss 'em," said Jeremy Renninghoff, the company's president. "It was cool, I gotta say it was really something neat."

Renninghoff says the company was first contacted by Bridgestone in early November. A few weeks later he shipped out about 800 pounds of equipment to California, where the commercials were being shot.

"I didn't have too much of a preconceived notion of what was going to happen or what they wanted to do. I listened to them and I suggested what they might want for equipment," he said.

"We sent them a good amount of stuff, all of the high level equipment, the cameras, the scoreboards. It was good timing too because we didn't have a whole lot of work going on."

Renninghoff did not want to disclose how much Bridgestone paid to rent the equipment for the ads but said it was a "significant" amount.

"It was actually very simple and easy to work with them, they were fantastic,: he said.

NSTS has a small number of employees who provide timing for events like cross-country and track and field meets, as well as road races around the region.

Employees were excited to see the equipment in a commercial aired during the Super Bowl, according to Renninghoff.

The Middlefield native took over as president of the company in 2010 when then president, Irving Black, passed away.

"I wish he was still around to see it because he would have been really thrilled."