I’ve always been a fan of Nascar. For the longest time my favorite driver was Dale Earnhardt senior. Now it is Kasey Kahne. But it is quickly getting to the point where I absolutely hate to watch racing on TV because of all the commercials and the sponsor plugs. A Nascar race has evolved into one never ending commercial. I started watching the race at Chicago yesterday evening and in the first 45 minutes there were six commercial breaks and I didn’t even bother to count all of the sponsor plugs. Drivers have even perfected a new way to hold a bottle of Coke while they take a sip just to make sure you and I see what it is they are drinking. I have to admit, it doesn’t make me want to run out and buy a Coke but instead it makes me want to see what else is on TV.
Last week they introduced a race with limited commercial breaks and as it turns out, it had more commercials than a normal race. The announcers were instead talking about the various sponsors and advertising and then a screen would pop up on TV with a commercial. You could see the cars racing at the top of the screen with a commercial blaring at the bottom. So basically in between the normal commercial breaks there were, for lack of a better description, commercial breaks.
There’s a few reasons I don’t watch much TV and the main one is because of all the commercials. I’d hate to completely quit watching Nascar but if the races don’t soon get back to more racing less commercials, I’ll happily keep my TV turned off. That being said, I’ve probably watched my last Nascar race on TV and I only watched the first 45 minutes of it.
July 14th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Unfortunately, as a sport becomes more popular it also becomes more exploitable. NASCAR is a big business now, and the drivers and networks make a lot of money from sponsorships and ads. It’s sad that things work that way, but they do.
I tend to record whatever I want to watch and then watch it later. That way I can at least skip or fast forward through the commercials.