I don't watch soccer often, but I do watch the big international tournaments, like the World Cup. It's so refreshing to see a sports game without any commercials. They have a half time show during which they show commercials, but once the first or second half starts, it's just soccer without any interruption for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, here in US with the big sports (e.g. the NFL), the greed seems to be getting worse and worse, at least to me. There were always a lot of commercials during a football game (I mean the game is 60 mins but it's shown for over 3 hours on tv), but lately, it seems to be getting even worse. Any time the action stops for whatever reason, even if that reason is something of great interest to the fans, such as an injury to an important player, or a team brawl, or analysis of a controversial replay, the tv station cuts to commercials like a speeding bullet. The NBA games are the same way. It's like these guys couldn't care less about putting any kind of enjoyable product for their customers and are just trying to cram as much ads into it as they can. Similarly, despite already rolling in money from stuffing the games full of commercials, they are all trying to move the games from network tv to cable stations. What actually prompted this thread is that I just saw that the first wildcard game is going to be televised on ESPN and not on a network tv stations, which is I think a first. They have already moved Monday Night or Thursday night games to cable as well. Back in the 90s, there would be a huge NBA games lineup during the weekend on NBC or ABC, now we are lucky to get a a game or two on Sunday. What's annoying about this is that as I mentioned, the games are already loaded with commercials, so it's like they are trying to get money both from that and from a cable subscription, screwing the customer over twice. And all this while all these leagues are making more money than ever.
I noticed this during the Ohio State game the other night.....the halftime had to be about 45 minutes......insanity. And speaking of the NBA, I recall reading an article that the national games have much more commercials than your local network weekday game.
You should do what I do and find a stream online from Japan. The commercials and commentary are so much better.
They do streams of football games from Japan? Haha, I am trying to imagine a Jets game commentary with those anime voices: Herro Geno Smith, you so horribru...
The commentary is entirely in Japanese. I have no idea what they are saying but they're really excited about it.
I can understand what you're saying but if I'm honest the greed is there in most soccer leagues too. The game itself doesn't really allow ad breaks unless you break away from the action. There aren't timeouts and the clock keeps running, so ads are crammed into pre & post game and half-time instead. The World Cup is slightly different but pro soccer teams all have corporate team sponsor logos on their jerseys and the competitions have named sponsors too. When the NFL allows the Jets to have Citigroup on their uniforms and play in the McDonalds Superbowl (we can dream) then greed will have taken over.
I thought this would be related to the extra wild card games, not commercials. Either way, I agree, but they are business and they are supposed to make money. Remember how much NFL says it cares about safety but wants more playoff games and a longer regular season and has TNF? It's not for competition, it's for money. It goes against player safety message and all of that, but it's because they are at the top of the ratings so why not milk it for all the money you can.
The broadcasters are paying billions for the rights to these games, they have to recoup that money somehow. It's the "Non-profit" NFL that's raking in the money. Besides, ya gotta piss sometime.
