This paper examines a recruitment commercial from the Super Bowl on 9 February 2025 in terms of its spectacularisation of petroleum's abiding yet volatile influence. The minute‐long piece on behalf of federal law enforcement indicates how the workings of power in the United States of America are entangled with the ubiquity of oil extraction, transportation and consumption. It is concluded that such marketing is an expression of insecurities about the durability of the nation's global dominance in a period when low‐carbon transitions are reshaping geopolitical structures.