MVN - Most Valuable Network

Wednesday Rundown: NCAA Corporate Sponsorship Fatigue

Your daily random roundup:

Item: Excellent article from The Money Shot about NCAA tournament corporate sponsors that deserve the middle finger. As they point out, when the Big Dance gets underway tomorrow, we’ll be treated to the same freaking commercials over and over again every damn time CBS takes a break. And although the advertisers are certainly to blame for NCAA corporate sponsorship fatigue (since they see no problem with constantly running the same tired cycle of commercials), CBS also gets its share of the blame for taking a commercial break practically every time the whistle blows.

My take: We will indeed be treated to basketball heaven later this week and throughout the weekend, but the commercials are without a doubt the dark side of this sporting paradise. Gee, I can’t wait to see that Taco Bell commercial with the gooey cheese hanging from peoples’ mouths (don’t worry folks, you’ll probably be viewing that one 10+ times per day), and I’m also absolutely thrilled at the prospect of seeing that dumbass Coach K/Coach Jay State Farm ad every 15 minutes during the tourney.

Item: The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres played a couple spring training games in Beijing this past weekend…however, you won’t see any analysis or commentary about those games in this space. Instead, I’d like to give recognition to the Chinese cheerleaders who stole the show during the brief Dodgers-Padres series.

My take: Bravo to the Chinese for finally pointing out the fact that baseball and cheerleaders are an excellent combination. Here’s hoping Bud Selig took notice of the inclusion of cheerleaders in the MLB’s brief appearance in China, and will now strictly require all teams to compose a cheerleading squad — and no, the “Marlin Manatees” don’t count. Judging from the pictures, these ladies seem like the least coordinated cheerleaders I’ve ever seen…but hey, you can’t fault them for a lack of effort.

Item: Le Anne Schreiber, the ESPN ombudsman, says SportsCenter has changed for the better within the past month or so. Schreiber characterizes the recent episodes of SportsCenter she viewed as “crisp, clean hours dominated by highlights and news, with remarkably few gimmicks, sponsored segments, cross-promotions or padding of any kind.” She adds, “Analyst segments were few and short, usually a single analyst giving a pithy 30-second answer to a single focused question rather than a whole crew of studio analysts…getting into snarly dogfights for our presumed entertainment.”

My take: I can’t say I’ve noticed these changes — I haven’t watched SportsCenter in quite some time. I was tired of the bickering between the “experts,” confused about why such little attention was paid to actual news, and would instantly change the channel when yet another gimmicky segment would occur (”Who’s Now?” is probably the best example of SportsCenter’s tendency to resort to airing lame gimmicks rather than more relevant and compelling coverage of the sports world). After reading Schreiber’s comments, though, I’d be willing to give SportsCenter another shot.

Item: Earlier in the week, the New York Daily News did a special preview issue for the NCAA tournament. They listed a “fun fact” for each team in the tourney, and the following fun fact they wrote for San Diego had The Realists scratching their heads:

FUN FACT: Power forward Rob Jones, a 6-5, 230-pound freshman, turned down football offers from such traditional powers as Notre Dame, Miami and Oregon to pursue a basketball career. He is the grandson of Jim Jones, the leader of the Jonestown jungle compound where more than 900 people were killed in 1978 in a mass murder/suicide.

My take: Uh, is that the Daily News’ idea of “fun?” Call me crazy, but cults, brainwashing, and mass suicides aren’t exactly the most light-hearted and enjoyable things I can think of.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 3:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.