{"id":93,"date":"2006-09-03T22:24:53","date_gmt":"2006-09-04T02:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lucas-photo.com\/blog\/?p=93"},"modified":"2009-07-24T11:29:32","modified_gmt":"2009-07-24T15:29:32","slug":"ads-subtract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/03\/ads-subtract\/","title":{"rendered":"Ads subtract"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I just got back from my first college football game since the new rules were implemented.<\/p>\n

“New rules?” you ask. Yes, new rules<\/a> that are designed to “speed up” the game. New rules that keep the clock running after a change of possession. New rules that start the clock on kickoff, not when the other team touches the ball. <\/p>\n

Rules, in short, that are designed to ensure less actual football but leave plenty of time for ads. <\/p>\n

Hey, I’m aware of the realities. Ads = revenue. You don’t get to the top of this heap with bargain-basement personnel. Great leaders, great staffers are few and far between, and they don’t come cheap.<\/p>\n

But this is wrong in so many ways. If there’s really a need to speed things up, put a tranquilizer dart in the red-hat guy’s neck. Because while he’s on the field, there’s one tenth of a million people in the stands twiddling their thumbs, and the rest of the country’s checking for leftover pizza in the fridge. <\/p>\n

But it gets even worse: this<\/strong> game was on freakin’ pay-per-view<\/em>. How the hell did we get suckered into paying<\/em> to see ads?<\/p>\n

Take a step back and think about this question: <\/p>\n

How many commercials would it take to motivate nearly 100,000 screaming, rabid fans to lay down a handful or two of Alexander Hamiltons in order to spend days driving, fighting gridlock traffic, searching for a place to park, trudging up several flights of stairs in oppressive humidity, and cheering themselves hoarse for a couple of hours, fighting back tears of joy the whole time?<\/p>\n

How many insurance ads would get that kind of turnout?<\/p>\n

How about ads for cars or banks or drinks or bug sprays or groceries or–well, anything else?<\/p>\n

You get the picture. <\/p>\n

Football– the game– is the filet mignon in this T-bone. Ads are the gristle. We put up with ’em because we have to, but they’re not the reason we’re here.<\/p>\n

Television had better wake up to this reality before advertisers suck *all* the life out of the game. <\/p>\n

Because when the T-bone has too much gristle and not enough meat, there’s always leftover pizza in the fridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I just got back from my first college football game since the new rules were implemented. “New rules?” you ask. Yes, new rules that are designed to “speed up” the game. New rules that keep the clock running after a change of possession. New rules that start the clock on kickoff, not when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best","category-gainesville","category-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucas-photo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}