Been living under a rock? Then you may have missed the local-turned-national story in which Seahawks newbie Golden Tate broke into a Top Pot Donuts last weekend at 3am because he couldn’t resist the alluring smell of the maple bars.

Hrrmmmmm, thought some of the more alert members of the national media. Could this all be just a big publicity stunt? Top Pot is, after all, the official donut and coffee vendor of the Seattle Seahawks.

On Wednesday, Darren Rovell of CNBC wrote:

Let’s say [Top Pot] heard about Tate’s obsession with those maple bars and held a media event where they presented him with a “lifetime deal.” I guarantee you that would have done a fraction of what this news story did for sales of maple bars.

If Tate did an endorsement deal of sorts, it would just be local news. After all, the company only has seven stores and they’re all in Washington. But, as a result of how it went down, there were over 140 stories written on Top Pot’s Maple Bars.

However it went down, it’s pretty clear no one is taking the situation very seriously. Golden is now engaging in tongue-in-cheek tweets on the matter. His coach, Pete Carroll, has commented: “I do understand the lure of the maple bars.” The cops understood too, they let Tate off with a warning.

Hrmmmmmm.