Donald Trump’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Tweet Reportedly Generated Over $25 Million in Free Publicity for HBO

Our pop culture and current events reached an interesting intersection last week, when President Donald Trump tweeted out a Game of Thrones-themed response to the release of the Mueller report. While the mashup was met with quite a lot of scrutiny, it sounds like it was a weird blessing in disguise for HBO.

According to a new study from Apex Marketing Group (via Darren Rovell), Trump’s tweet – and the subsequent coverage of it – was the equivalent of over $25 million in ad value for Game of Thrones. Those metrics look at the TV, radio, social media, and online coverage surrounding the buzzworthy tweet, which saw Trump using the Thrones logo to proclaim “Game Over” to “the haters and the radical left Democrats”.

While this isn’t the first time that President Trump has tweeted a Thrones-style mashup in response to current events, this mashup caught the attention of HBO in a very particular way.

“Though we can understand the enthusiasm for Game of Thrones now that the final season has arrived, we still prefer our intellectual property not be used for political purposes,” an HBO spokesman said in a statement last week.

There is a weird irony to President Trump’s fascination with Game of Thrones imagery, considering how outspoken the series’ original author, George R.R. Martin, has been about his election.

“There are really no words for how I feel this morning.” Martin wrote on his blog shortly after the 2016 election. “America has spoken. I really thought we were better than this. Guess not. Trump was the least qualified candidate ever nominated by a major party for the presidency. Come January, he will become the worst president in American history, and a dangerously unstable player on the world stage. And the decimated Democrats, a minority in both House and Senate, do not have the power to hinder him. Over the next four years, our problems are going to get much, much worse. Winter is coming. I told you so.”

What do you think of this latest development with President Trump’s Game of Thrones-themed tweet? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Game of Thrones‘ final season airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.