Evan Grzeszczak
Mr. Reuter
Economics B4
10 March 2015
How the Commercial Aspects of American Sports Can Learn From Soccer
Do you know what’s the worst? When you are watching your favorite sport and suddenly it’s that time of the quarter again, the scheduled commercial break is back. You sit around and wait for the game to get back, watching clips of something that you really do not care about. As Bobby McMohan exclaims, “you see more beer, cars and chips than you do on-field action when you watch the NFL on TV” (McMohan, par. 7). This trap may be perfect for advertisers, but for viewers, typical and repetitive commercials are the worst.
In this graphic by the Wall Street Journal, it is depicted that of the 3 hours of time that a usual NFL game lasts, 11 minutes of it are actual gameplay. In total, an hour and a half is actual footage of the game. Nearly half of the time that you are watching football, the game is not even on the television, it is comercials. The scheduled commercial breaks cause the flow of american games to be lost. This is where American sports can learn from soccer.
In this graph, it is shown that the NFL, MLB, and NBA all make more than the EPL. The main cause of this is that the American sports endlessly play commercials. The ending of comercials for the majority of the game however would cause the American sports to go bankrupt because they rely so heavily on it, to counteract this, other practices would need to be put in place.
In soccer, commercials are only on before, during halftime, and after the game.Soccer handles this through a different form of advertising. Soccer allows the fan to watch the game while advertisements are sprinkled in, or rather slowly soaked in constantly. These advertisements are everywhere at a soccer game. Anything you may look at at a soccer game will have some element of advertisement to it, the jerseys, the shoes, the stadium, the name of the stadium, and many others. All of these aspects are magnified by the effects of competition between businesses who long for their company to be put on the front of every jersey to be sold.
For American sports to cut scheduled commercial breaks would mean more commercialized factors in the sports. It would mean that American sports would have to have sponsors on their jerseys like their soccer counterparts, a trade off worth exploring. Many franchises would never allow a sponsor on their jersey because it makes the jersey seem unauthentic and ruins its history. The opportunity cost of having a sponsor on your jersey is that the jersey is no longer authentic to the team’s history. Some american teams believe that the demand for jerseys will lower because the taste of the consumers will change, as they would rather not be a human billboard.
However, soccer has been displaying sponsors on their jerseys since 1973 when a team in Germany put the name of a community alcohol company, Jägermeister onto their jerseys. It is actually the sponsors that pushed the marketing of jerseys, so that the sponsors could become even more popular, what’s not to say that this happens for American sports? The challenge of putting sponsors on jerseys is not so difficult as it may seem. Another trade off from ending scheduled commercial breaks is that commercials will be played largely throughout most of the half time period. Which is already done in American sports.
If commercializing the teams isn’t exactly something that appeals to you, a way that leagues could allow for less commercial breaks would be to commercialize the league. In England the English Premier League, or for short, the EPL, has sold its naming rights to Barclaycard for $52 million, and thus the name was altered to the Barclay’s Premier League.
The culture of American sports may be that we should sit around a TV and watch hours of excess clips that we do not care about, but that could change so that we could actually experience a game to its fullest potential. To end commercials during American sports would take a lot of change, but in the end it may be worth it.
Works Cited
- "A Dozen Reasons Why The NFL Will Never Make It Outside Of The USA."Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
- "11 Minutes of Action." WSJ. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
- Gaines, Cork. "CHART: English Soccer Lags Way Behind Top American Sports In Revenue." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 18 Mar. 2014. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
- "The Money." Soccer Politics The Politics of Football. N.p., 10 Dec. 2009. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
- "Soccer Still the Main Event for Advertisers." WSJ. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
- Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
I like how you explained the picture from the wall street journal it helped me better understand what it meant. I am not sure what EPL stands for so you should've explained that more. I also like how you explained the trade offs required to make games more enjoyable to watch. I think it is interesting that you said that the demand for jerseys are going down because consumers taste is changing.
ReplyDeleteI agree Evan. Looking into different advertising possibilities could be a step in the right direction. One reason I don't watch sports very much is because of the amount of commercials aired. I did not know that there were less commercials for soccer in Europe, but this makes sense now because the teams have so much advertising on them and around them. There would definitely be a trade off in authenticity of the jerseys if teams decided to advertise on the front of them. Jersey sales and surveys could be analyzed and conducted to see if jerseys would in fact drop in demand if there is more advertising on them.
ReplyDeleteYou make a valid argument. I think it is part of American culture to watch commercials especially for NFL games. I do think though that there is room to cut back in commercials in all sports in America. The jersey sponsor idea is a good substitute. I think if the jersey just had one main sponsor the fans might be more open to purchasing a jersey and it still being considered authentic rather than having multiple sponsors causing the demand to potentially drop greater.
ReplyDeleteWhile you make a valid point of how time is wasted at a football game by claiming only 11 minutes are played, it also provides competition and money for commercial ads. The tradeoff of more commercial time is adding competition between advertisers. Plus the TV host gains money for putting these commercials on their show. I believe that the football game provides mutual benefits for both the fans and the commercial advertisers.
ReplyDeleteI think this point is really good to make. A lot of American's use and view commercials as a good thing. We often get to use the extra time or we get to take a break for a little bit, but in soccer we don't get that. We get a half- time and that is really about it. We keep going until the end and commercials aren't viewed during that time. Being a soccer player most of my life I have seen this first hand and everyone should cut down on commercials the games might end better or maybe not be as long.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree about your statement that American sports could learn from soccer in playing less commercials. Coming from a huge soccer family that watches primer league European soccer pretty much every day, I notice the difference between televised American sports and European soccer. It's so annoying when watching a game that it just cuts off every few minutes. By 20 minutes in, I've lost most of my interest in watching because I'm watching more commercials than the actual game. Also, almost every commercial break I usually go on my phone and by the time I'm doing something interesting on my phone, I look up at the TV and see that I missed the few minutes of the game and it's already back into another commercial break. In contrast, soccer games are very interesting (for those who enjoy the sport) and you get to watch the game in its full entirety other than the half-time break.
ReplyDeleteI understand the frustration with the commercial time but most of the time the game can't be sped up. The players face injury and get tired more than many of the major sports in the world. Advertising on the jersey will not allow for less commercial breaks. The point of cable tv was paying for less commercials but now it seems like there are more commercials than ever. The NFL will put ads on the jersey and within 10 years commercials will be back and worst than ever.
ReplyDeleteSome aspects of this plan are definitely worth exploring. The amount of commercials during a football game is ridiculous and obnoxious. If changes that you propose were put in place, there would be increased available air time for TV channels and also increased revenue that might even allow American sports leagues to expand.
ReplyDeletei suppose a huge amount of time are all about commercials. But if the tv program were to get rid of all the commercials throughout the game the usual "super bowl" party would be only a minimum of 25-35 minutes. This would lose a huge part of the marginal cost for both the hosts and guests. There'd be no fun and it would also be a loss for stores because everyone buys a giant bulk of snacks. This includes opportunity costs.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it seems like a god concept, I doubt that the NFL will be willing to let go millions of commercial money each year. The only reason there aren't any commercials in the English Premier League or any soccer league is only because it doesn't have breaks in the game. All 90 minutes of game play doesn't have stoppage time, if It did then there would definitely be stoppage time commercials. The opportunity cost for removing commercials isn't a trade off that will be worth having.
ReplyDeleteFootball games are perfect. It doesn't tie you down, you can get up at commercials and eat or go to the bathroom. Every time I look away from a soccer game I feel like I miss a goal or some cool trick. Commercials get annoying but if you have something to do in the mean time it's really not that bad.
ReplyDeleteIt is behoove to air commercials, although it is very frustrating. The NFL makes more money than the EPL by airing commercials whenever they can. The NFL would loose tremendous amounts of money if they tried to air the games like soccer games. It would also be more boring because football is a stop-and-go game in which there is a lot of time between plays.
ReplyDelete