Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
It’s time for the Sports Beautification Act.
In 1965, Congress passed the Highway Beautification Act. It seems there were too many billboards blighting the landscape. As a result, thousands of them were removed across the country.
If that proves that the inexorable march of marketing is not impossibly inexorable, then it’s time once again for Congress to convene.
In the waning moments of the classic Game 6 of this year’s World Series, Fox Sports showed a short montage of other Game 6’s that ended on a walk-off hit. There was Carl Yztremski in 1975, Ray Knight in ’86, Kirby Puckett in ’91 and then Joe Carter in 1993.
All throughout, not one logo or billboard was seen in the background.
Then they cut back to 2011.
There, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, whatever camera angle happened to be on showed logos and billboards of plenty. The dugout shot gave you BankofAmerica.com repeated on the handrest, not to mention New Era and other logos on the dugout wall. The batter shot gave you three Nike swooshes on the catcher and a billboard for Taco Bell behind the umpire - or three giant Major League Baseball logos just to remind you of where you were. A shot of the pitcher gave you, in a new addition for 2011, a Nike swoosh on the front center of his half-turtleneck. A shot of any outfielder, except centerfield, would give you a billboard behind.
All told, from 1993 to today in Major League Baseball, marketing had debuted and encroached on uniforms, two-thirds of the outfield fence, on dugouts and behind the plate.
That is in one sport.
In others, in the same period, we’ve seen 10-foot logos on college and pro basketball courts, Motorola and AT&T logos over the top of headsets and mouthpieces on coaches, and possibly worst of all, corporate stadium naming. In “Seahawks Stadium’s” young life it has had three names so far - while the stadium next door is a monument to car insurance.
It makes you wonder. How much more pleasant is talking to someone, vs. talking to someone trying to sell you something?
So it’s time to summon Congress.
Seeing those old game 6 clips was a glimpse of what highways, I mean sports, used to be. It was seeing an actual contest between two actual teams in an actual place. Cutting back to 2011 after that was like going to the grocery story to find out apples are being sold individually packaged in cardboard and cellophane, complete with promotions for the 2012 Chevy Silverado, Fox’s fall lineup and BankofAmerica.com printed on the sides.
Buying an apple the way we already do is so much better. On the flipside, so it used to be for sports.
For what reason did we need all this new marketing is the question.
Money?
No significant money was made off of sports previous to the mid-’90s?
It’s true that salaries have skyrocketed since then, which forces owners to look for ways to bring in more revenue. But nothing brings in more revenue than something that is real.
A contest between two real teams wearing real uniforms in a real stadium, is more interesting to anyone than a pre-packaged, shrink-wrapped, moisture-wicked, synergistic, branded and produced for Fox television event.
Perhaps the worst culprit in all of this is Nike.
Phil Knight, take your seat in the Congressional hearing room. The proliferation of the swoosh has crossed nearly into parody now, with the latest move to front-and-center necklines in the World Series. Nike, once known for creativity and ideas, apparently just runs on blunt-force marketing now. It’s as if all of the pens and pencils at Nike headquarters in Beaverton have been removed. In their place, for the only way to communicate there, they have sledgehammers.
So the Sports Beautification Act of 2011 would entail:
1. No billboards at field level of any major sport. If the NHL wants to act like a pretender still, they can be exempt.
2. Sportswear manufacturers can market themselves as far and wide as they want, but not on the uniform themselves.
3. Teams shall decide on their school colors and stick with them.
Point No. 2 may require marketers to actually think of some good ideas for advertising again. To them, Congress offers its sympathy and encouragement. Sledgehammers no longer needed may be donated to Teamsters Local 324.
If the result is that salaries decrease by 10% around the leagues, what is the issue? They’ve increased near exponentially since 1993, so a drop by 10% still allows for vast growth in less than two decades.
As for Point No. 3 of the Sports Beautification Act, this might be asking too much.
Nonetheless, it would do wonders right here in Washington, where we have a college with one of the most proud, original and fitting color schemes in all of sports and it’s not being used. University of Washington’s purple and gold is unlike any other program, and fits the royalty of the Huskies of the Emerald City – not to mention their accomplished history. So instead of tapping into that, they’re walking out in all black uniforms one week, all white the next into a confusing mess.
If it was a highway, the asphalt would change colors at the mile markers - and be different on the way home.
For WSU, they preach “Crimson and Gray” in their “branding,” but most of the time wear helmets which are crimson and white. How many schools have helmets that aren’t even in their school colors?
A quick look at a WSU uniform from 1993 gives you a glimpse of what beauty we once had in sports, and could have again.
Is all this just nostalgia for a simpler time? Was the highway act all nostalgia?
It got passed, so maybe not.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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