Ads: The American Way

They are. But not on jerseys. My new found like for soccer has me comparing my experiences to other sports I enjoy watching. I've found that there is little to compare to a morning Premier League game on ESPN 2. No commercial breaks and fluid games, not to mention... My man Ian Darke!

Contrast this to American football. Change of possession? Ad time out. After a TD? Ads. Then the field goal? Ads. After each kick off? Ads. Three time outs a half? Ad. Ad. Ads.

I remember my English Nana complaining once of all the ads when I was a kid. Now I know where that thought game from.

Man, don't even get me started on College Basketball, my first love. I can't even watch the end of a tight game anymore. MLB baseball? forget it. Ads after the top and bottom of innings. DROP THE ADS IN THE MIDDLE OF INNINGS. Yeah, all caps there.

So what am I getting at? Nothing really. I had a point to make about no ads on jerseys and to a larger extent or view the way we, Americans, view sport. It is our sacred cow. Hero worship. We forge them in school. So much so that sports are hitched to school at all levels. Not separate, but part of. Want to be a professional football player? You have to be three years removed from high school. i.e. play college because there are no developmental leagues. With soccer in Europe, kids are plucked out of school at around birth and put on a developmental pro team. What seems to happen is you get a Rooney. What some call a mule. He ain't too smart.

Just when I thought the trend away for that sort of thing was shifting with all the kids coming out of college to play ball, the NBA instituted a rule that you had to be one year removed from HS. And this rule may even be extended here soon probably because one of the last players to be plucked out of high school was LeBron James. A man-child who, after 7 years out of school, still wears a backpack around for some reason.

We like our teams clean of advertisements here. And we want to think of our players as intelligent. I happen to love that.

Just chill on the commercial breaks a bit.