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Meh, its a thing with football itself. A decent portion of the game clock time is spent not playing the game. Not even counting how often it is paused, or that there are long breaks like half time. Whats the camera gonna do during all that break time? Gotta do something, might as well look at the most famous people at the game. As someone who doesn't really care about football or find it super interesting, this has always been a plus for me. I can go to a party where people care about football and still interact with the people that like football for about half the time, and then be on my phone the other half the time.
I was watching the last Chiefs vs Ravens game with someone that was actively annoyed at Taylor Swift coming on screen. They are a political junkie. They work at a think thank. They've been involved with politics for many years. They could probably come up with a multitude of reasons why this is a political annoyance. Wasn't my impression though. They were eager to see the actual game, and any of the interruptions were annoying to them. There are basically only two outcomes for things between football plays: immediately ignoring the thing, or immediately hating it.
The smart ad money should ironically be on the people that don't care about the games at all.
Think about it. You have a football fanatic that is definitely going to watch the game. The TV will be on in a semi public setting. The non-football fanatics will have lost interest in the game very quickly.
The game stop (like it does every thirty seconds). The football fanatic is on the edge of their seat waiting for more action (which usually happens). Everyone else is bored on their phones. The football fanatic is denied their fix (a commercial, or a cut to some celebrity in the stands). The football fanatic exclaims in anger or frustration built up from watching the game. Everyone else is temporarily jerked out of their phones. Boom! Play the ad, get two audiences instead of just one.
One of my favorite ads in recent football memory is for Tide. A laundry detergent. They basically did an aggressive campaign of being a part of every commercial break, and tricking you into thinking it was an ad for a different product. But Tide isn't really a great product to advertise for men watching football. However, its the perfect product to advertise to wives, mothers, and girlfriends who have men watching football.
That is my pet theory for the Taylor Swift ad spots.
You are right if course, but I'm pretty sure this philosophy is why sports broadcasting have been haemorrhaging money in recent years. Scratch that, why every form of entertainment has gone to shit in recent years. Everyone is so eager to disrupt and get that new audience that we've turned everything into focus grouped bullshit.
I enjoy video games, stand up comedy, podcasts, and youtube videos. Low barriers to entry hasn't stopped enshitification, but new entrants in the art just take over.
I don't understand, what does that mean for sports media?
Emphasis added by me. If you'd left it at the first sentence I would say I don't disagree or have much of an opinion (since I don't watch sports). I just disagree with the stronger claim that all entertainment has gone to shit.
I would not be surprised if sports is extra shitty, partly because they intentionally put up barriers to entry in order to squeeze every penny they can out of the broadcast rights.
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