If there was Truth-in-Broadcasting law, the TV announcers doing Super Bowl coverage would be required to say, “We Interrupt this 48 minute Commercial Break with a few minutes of football hype, some re-plays, some sideline interviews with the running back’s mom, highlight plays from other games, and every now and then, some real football action.”
Last year a record number of viewers -- more than 106 million -- tuned-in to the NFL football championship game between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis. They watched 48 minutes of ads, for a total of 66 commercial messages. This does not count all the pregame coverage hype and associated ads.
There is no news in the fact that the professional football industry is driven by TV advertising revenue. Even during the regular season games, they force lengthy time-outs during the game to inflict a barrage of commercials to the numb-nuts viewers who can’t find the clicker to see what else is on. (Chances are that most viewers over age 55 switch to a rerun of “Law and Order” and then forget to switch back until the next commercial break ).
Most of us seasoned armchair sports fans use the commercial breaks to go to the bathroom or get a fresh beer. Feed the cats. Check our email. Or clean the garage. We might watch a new commercial the first time out of curiosity, but after the 3rd time we get bored and use the break to read the paper or update our Facebook profiles. Here is a partial list of samo-samo commercials that inevitably make me reach for the mute button:
Home Depot - I go there anyway, leave me alone.
Dominos - never tried it, never will.
Verizon –who gives a crap if I’m covered in Iowa?
Viagra, Cialis - How do you explain floppy wiener to a nine year old?
Coors Lite - How dumb are you if you need the label to turn blue to tell you if its cold enough to drink
Droid – what the heck is it anyway?
Promos for other upcoming shows
Lexus – can’t afford one, they are just sexed-up Camry’s anyhow.
Dunkin donuts – always disappointing
Toyota – just annoying
Chevy Silverado 500th time ive seen it
Ford F150 – Dennis Leary reading big print. Yawn.
Taco Bell - The drive thru diet.com - she lost 50 lbs yeah, right!
TD Ameritrade – yeah I need more risk in my life.
Geiko – WTF does a lizard have to do with insurance?
Progressive – Hey lady, just shut the f*ck up, willya?
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| Guys Watching Football |
Someone did a study a while back counting the percentage of time, the game is actually being played – i.e., when someone has the ball and is running with it, or trying to catch, throw or kick it. The clock time is 60 minutes, but most of that time is spent with players standing around waiting for someone to tell them what to do, or engaging in chest-bumping celebrations. I think they calculated about nine minutes of actual live football playing. And the announcers will not stop yakking.
Oh and don’t get me started about replay fatigue. And the endless attempts of the color announcer to kick up the interest level of the analysis by quoting useless statistics. "Brady hasn't thrown an interception in a game played in a stadium south of the 38th parallel!"
Some games I spend on the computer updating my blog or Facebook page with the sound turned down and if an interesting play happens (indicated by an elevated volume of crowd noise) I watch the inevitable replay. Or if I doze off on the couch, I am confident that I will not really miss any action because of the multiple game summaries, halftime reports and post game analyses.
Between commercials, there is way too much talking –a lot of it repetitive. Did I mention that it seems repetitive and also redundant. Recaps, replays, highlights, more replays "wait, let's look at this in slo- mo. Did his knee touch the ground before he went out..."
Then they have those babes on the sideline interviewing the running back’s mother. "What type of soup does he like?" If you want to have women talking about football, fine, get some mannish looking female. A good looking woman with great hair and makeup has zero credibility when talking about football.
There are continual assaults on concentration. Every time there is a perceived lull, they cut away to the sports desk to highlight plays from other games that you are not interested in. Fast cuts make me dizzy.
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| Distractions abound |
Crawls – the person who invented crawls needs to be tortured and hanged. I will give a million dollars to the inventor who can give me the option to block the play-by-play and color commentary but keep the other crowd noise and player audio; and also block crawls and those annoying superimposed promos of upcoming events. Note to Fox: Your animated football playah robot has no conceivable purpose. It needs to be banned.
In summary, watching the Game on TV is getting to be a tedious,annoying and distracting experience. The only thing that could be worse is actually going to the stadium and paying $40 to park, plus the price of a case of scotch to freeze your ass off in one of their tiny seats, while the people in front will not sit down, and the drunk next to you spills his beer on your pants.
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