The Weird World of Sports

As much as I love to watch sports on tv, I am always flummoxed by the marketing devices and commercials associated with pro football. There is one commercial, that to me, seems to be quite a stretch. While we are all reacting to the obnoxious chevy commercial with John Mellencamp, there is a ford commercial on during the games that always gives me pause. Who doesn't want to be a hero?... Well I want to be one. When I was a little kid I used to fantasize about pulling off some heroic act, usually in the form of some athletic feat. Well, now anyone can become a hero, and you don't have to be a professional athlete. Just buy yourself a big Ford pick'em up truck. In one particular commercial the owner of just such a truck approaches a traffic jam caused by a semi that is stuck under a bridge. No problem though, he just hooks a chain up to it and pulls it right out. Heroic indeed, but wait. Here comes the ambulance. This guy probably just saved a life because there was an ambulance waiting desperately to emerge from beyond the pinned semi. So, apparently Ford trucks provide enough torque to save lives.

Then we cut back to the game and Fox has created this little animated figure to fill in some screen space while they mention their sponsors. If you watch a football game there frequently appears this weird animated robot football player along the lower left hand side of the tv screen. What the hell is this thing? It jumps around and gestures like a football player, but why? I know football is aggressive and the players are, in some sense, like machines, but this is probably the lamest attempt I have ever seen to reinforce those ideas.

I am also seriously considering the purpose of the mascot. I thought that maybe mascots were intended for the enjoyment of little kids. Most kids seem to either be afraid of mascots or, if they're a little older, they think mascots are stupid. I, personally, feel embarassed for the person running around in an oversized badger costume.

So, all of these different marketing / entertainment schemes seem awfully weird to me, except for the Ford ad which is just silly. But the aggro little football robot, and the grown man carrying on like a buffoon in a giant badger costume? I shudder to think what this implies about me, the general sports fan. Although I love watching sports on tv, I abhor being lumped into a demographic that is presumed to be amused by these vacuous contrivances.

Oh, and if you stay up late enough you can hear some real freaks on 1250AM. This is Milwaukee's 24 hour sports radio station. There are definitely too many hours in the day to try to fill them up with sports talk. The wee hours of sports talk radio in Milwaukee are as volatile as the wild west.