The Sports Curmudgeon

About 18 months ago, I did a Topical Rant on “Gambling in Sports” and I’m sure that the Webmaster has archived it somewhere on the website. In one part of that rant I tried to tell you that the anti-gambling forces were actually trying to run your lives for you because they were going to use some sordid events in collegiate athletics as a smokescreen for them to try to pass legislation that would make you live your life they way they think it is best for you to live it. Believe me, they have not swayed from that course; they don’t want you to gamble and they will continue to look for leverage points to try to make that happen.

Those folks are but one wing of the “Thought Police”. This is a coalition of people and organizations who have as their agenda to make you think and act in ways that they approve of. To these people, when you think an evil or devious thought, you are someone who needs to be counseled and taught the proper way to think and behave. And since they do the counseling and teaching - because only they know what is proper and improper - you get to be taught to think the way they think and the way they think everyone else should think.

They are too wishy-washy to come out and say that your evil or devious thoughts make you an evil person or a deviant because that would be judgmental and that is part of the human thought process that they don’t approve of. These people are just as scary as any other group of monomaniacal thinkers are; the difference is that they pretend to be “warm and fuzzy” so they come across as less threatening than the folks at Aryan Nation. But change the vocabulary and the tactics and there is a lot of similarity there!

Myles Brand is on record as part of the anti-gambling crowd. He is entitled to his opinion. Because he is entitled to his opinion, he is also entitled to be wrong. But this weekend, he blew his cover as an operative of the “Thought Police”. Myles Brand exercised a clause in the contract that the NCAA has with CBS to televise the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and barred the use of the sequel to the “Miller Catfight Girls” commercial that was supposed to debut then. He and the NCAA cited the “ad campaign’s lack of taste”. That is actually an opening for yet another Miller sequel since the “catfight” occurs because the young ladies disagree over whether it is important that their beer “taste great” or is “less filling”.

First of all, in banning the ad Myles Brand has just handed Miller Beer an advertising coup that they could not have gotten any other way. The commercial is being talked about and is being made part of the cultural landscape before it even runs. Miller is getting publicity/advertising not only for its product but also for the commercial that touts its product. Somewhere in Miller’s advertising department and at their ad agency, there are people looking skyward and saying in soft and reverent tones, Thank You!!

Second of all, the only effect of this ban is that you will have to wait an extra few hours to actually see this “sequel commercial”. Don’t be fooled; you are going to see it. The NCAA cannot prevent that any more than they can prevent gambling on their games. But the ”delay” is based on their decision that this advertising campaign “lacks taste”. They have made that judgment for you; they have decided that you are not mature enough or intelligent enough to look at the ad and decide for yourself if it is in poor taste; they have to protect you because they know better than you do. The NCAA has just become part of a larger group of people who wants to take care of you by thinking for you. Be very afraid of these people. They are not your friends any more than Hannibal Lechter is a good neighbor.

Myles Brand can only push this pawn so far. Beer advertising can be regulated and “capped’ in NCAA telecasts; but if he went so far as to try to ban it, all hell would break loose. Beer advertising is a big part of the money wheel that puts the billions of dollars into the NCAA coffers from televised sports. Dry up that source and the revenues go down and athletic departments will swim in more red ink and universities will be very unhappy NCAA members. Translation: Myles Brand will be looking for work quickly if he does that.

But Myles Brand can serve as a stalking horse out in front of other legions of the “Thought Police”. His “principled stance” on good taste in advertising gives them the thing they need the most – an opportunity for face time on TV so that they can preach their message. Quickly out of the box came the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Talk about an organization whose name is a misnomer. Apply the truth in advertising laws here and it would be called:

“Center for Proselytizing on Issues that are of Interest to the Center for Science in the Public Interest”.

They are certain that beer ads on TV and particularly on televised sporting events are a cause of binge drinking. Just ask them and they can point to studies they have done – not ones that others have done but one’s that they and their cronies have done. They assure us confidently that “Advertising 101” makes it clear that putting the beer message out there increases consumption and draws new consumers to the marketplace. Therefore, this is evil and exploitative and must be stopped.

Did you ever think to ask these people why “Advertising 101” has not worked to minimize drug usage since the only ads you see are for anti-drug campaigns? If they are effective, then we should have seen the drug usage problem in the US drop to insignificant proportions over the last decade of advertising because I certainly haven’t seen yet any ad campaigns from the Cali Cartel telling you that

“Coca Cola only says it’s the real thing, but coke is – in fact – the real thing.”

How come TV advertising is so effective in making people do things that these “Thought Police” members don’t like but is horribly ineffective in getting people to do what the “Thought Police” is so damned sure is the right thing to do?

Let me say several things here with no reservations or qualifications:

College students drink beer and they have been drinking beer legally and illegally since I was in college in the 1960s.

TV ads or no TV ads for beer during the NCAA tournament games, college students will continue to drink beer – legally and illegally, responsibly and irresponsibly.

Personally, I would not drink Miller Lite beer with your mouth.

I did not find the first iteration of the “Catfight Ad” to have any more of a “lack of taste” than other ads for things like hemorrhoid creams, diarrhea treatment, Viagra and herbal concoctions that purport to increase either breast size or penis size.

Do you like the ad from the American Cancer Society where two “physicians” are driving through a “neighborhood” and they say it used to be a nice place until all those “polyps” moved in? It’s supposed to get you to go and get a colonoscopy. Nice “neighborhood”, my ass.

The “replacement ad” for Miller Lite that played on the tournament games over the weekend shows a guy being injured at the whim of the girlfriend he cheated on based on her whimsical wishes while drinking the beer with one of her girlfriends. He gets hit in the crotch with a golf ball, struck by lightening and squished by a falling piano. This fits comfortably into Myles Brand’s stated need for a “sense of decorum” in advertising. Right!!

Memo to the “Thought Police”: I know what to do when an advertising campaign offends me so there is no need to protect me from myself.

The “Catfight” genre of ads is sort of self-limiting. The first one was funny; the second one may be funny too. But pretty soon, they will become repetitious and people will stop responding and they will be off the air faster than a prom dress can hit the floor. Myles Brand had his opportunity for a grandstand play and a chance to let his “Thought Police” cronies bag some more free airtime and so he took that opportunity. In doing so, he guaranteed that the “Catfight Sequel” will be the subject of discussion to a far greater extent than it would have if he had just stayed in his hole and waited six more weeks for spring to come.

Oh, by the way, let me give you an advance warning. May is the sweeps month for TV when ratings numbers are finalized. Local news programs all over the country and the national news outlets will be looking for stories that they can put on the air which will draw you to their telecast. During May you will hear more shocking news and more preaching from the Center for Science in the Public Interest than you have for a while because that is the symbiotic relationship that lets them exist. They provide news programs with “shocking developments” and the news outlets put CPSI spokesthings on the air. Just remember, they are part of the “Thought Police”. They want to do your thinking for you because they know better what is best for you. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Tell all of these people you are perfectly capable of thinking for yourself. Maybe the next time one of the “Thought Police” operatives preaches to you, you might inform him or her:

If you are the answer, then the question had to be stupid.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…