With the start of the NFL season, I will now spend the Sundays between now and sometime in early February with my eyes glued to the television for approximately 10 hours straight. It's amazing to me, because when someone asks me what my favorite sport is, I usually respond with "baseball." This is true, baseball is my favorite sport, but there is no ritual to watching baseball like there is for watching football. Ever since I was a young lad, it has been ingrained to my brain that you spend your Sundays watching football all day. I learned this from my Dad, and it has carried on to me, and I hope it will carry on to my children someday as well. But football isn't even my favorite sport. I watch more football than any other sport, and I'm pretty sure this is true for all of America as well. No, not pretty sure...this is a fact. The NFL is a monster because millions of people just like me spend their entire Sundays camped out on the couch with snacks, beer, and other assorted health hazards and watch grown men chase inflated, misshapen, funny-bouncin' balls around all day. So how does the NFL cash in? By selling massive amounts of advertising. Yes, it gets very irritating seeing the same companies advertising the same shit for 10 straight hours, but we just kind of live with it, and hope that there are two different games going on at the same time, so we can flip the channel when it's commercial time. Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint. Cellphones, trucks, and beer. That's what I gathered from watching the NFL yesterday. Also, the Titans need to shape up their offense in a hurry.
It's probably sad that I know that out of those companies listed above, of which there are three of each category, I know which ones are the "official sponsors." Coors, Ford, and Sprint. How do I know that? Repetition. Does it make me want to buy any of those products any more than the others? No. These companies are huge, huge companies. And what got my brain churning was asking myself why on earth they need to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars reminding us that they exist. That's the reason for advertising, isn't it? To remind us all that they exist, and when we are making a purchasing decision, to keep them in mind? I'm pretty sure that the majority of Americans are touched, one way or another, by each of these nine companies. I drive a Ford, and I have AT&T phone service. Do they spend the millions and millions so no one else can enter as competition, expect the established ones as listed above? For some reason, Anheuser-Busch needs to fucking remind you every four to 13 minutes that they sell Bud Light and it gets the party started when you drink it. It obviously works, because they do it. They are a business, and they make decisions to make them more money, and it must be by throwing a ridiculous amount of money at the NFL to have the privilege to do so. That's the only problem I have with Sundays in front of the TV. Too much bullshit advertisements.
I hope someone got the Goonies reference in the post's title. Please say you did, and don't lie.
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