My Boycott the BCS Advertisers Column
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
A few weeks ago I said that during my time at CBS, the site elected not to run four or five columns for a variety of reasons. They felt, perhaps correctly, that this column would offend their advertisers. So they didn't run it. Now, here it is for the first time. This was written to run on December 31, 2008. It's time we take a stand as consumers against the BCS. Here's how.
Here’s one of my 2008 New Year’s Resolutions a couple of weeks early: I hereby resolve not to consume the products of any company that advertises during the BCS Games for the entire month of January. For purposes of this resolution consume is defined broadly. I’m not buying a car, a taco, a beer or insurance from the advertisers. I’d ask anyone who’s disgusted with the current state of college football in America to join me. Take a stand for one month to express your outrage over college football’s refusal to consider the wishes of their fans and institute a playoff.
We’re approaching 2008 and the dawn of yet another season of BCS controversy. Right now as you’re reading this column you’re probably trying to figure out how much alcohol is the optimum amount to consume without being too hung over to wake up in time to watch football all day tomorrow. Also, how early you can cut out of work without being noticed by your boss. Unfortunately I can’t offer much in the way of direction. Other than that if you don’t go to sleep you don’t have to worry about waking up at all. I’m thinking about this even more because my Vols kick off at 10 central in the Outback Bowl. If I were on the west coast, I seriously wouldn’t sleep.
After New Year’s you’ll have six days to gear up for the BCS Championship Game between LSU and Ohio State on January 7. There will be five BCS games in all and thanks to the continued allegiance of college football fans, all five of these games will garner high ratings. Last year’s Ohio State-Florida game brought in 27.7 million viewers. This year’s game will bring in a similar number of viewers. And these numbers are one of the reasons why Fox was willing to pay $320 million for four years of broadcast rights to the BCS (excluding ABC’s Rose Bowl agreement).
Posting viewership like this enabled Fox to sell almost all of the advertising spots for their games before the match-up was even announced. How much did those spots sell for? Try a reported $500,000 for the non-title games and up to $950,000 for the title game spots. So there’s huge advertising money out there to support these games. Why? Because even if fans don’t particularly like the way college football selects their national champion, they’re still going to tune in to watch the games. Particularly men ages 18-49 who are the most difficult to reach. Bingo, a flawed system still brings in a huge payoff.
That’s why calls for fan boycotts of the game have been so ineffective in the past. No matter how convoluted, communistic, or unfair the college football finale is, no fan will give up the chance to watch this game. College football fan outrage doesn’t trump college football fandom. Fair enough. I hate the BCS but you can bet I’m going to be sitting down and watching these games. So asking fans to boycott the games themselves either by not traveling to them or not watching them in person is a losing proposition.
But, here’s the deal, if we’ve learned anything in the modern landscape it’s that advertising determines whether or not programming continues. If a program isn’t doing well enough in the ratings it gets pulled, because advertisers want to reach viewers. This is pretty basic stuff. Clearly ratings aren’t going to be an issue for BCS games. But advertisers also want their products to be well-received. They don’t want to antagonize consumers by helping to promote causes, ideas, or beliefs that their consumers find offensive. Keep in mind it wasn’t a threatened boycott of listening to Don Imus’s radio show that was an issue after his controversial comments, it was one advertiser after another publicly announcing that they didn’t want to continue to be associated with his program and were consequently pulling their advertising dollars. Bang, Imus crumbled and his radio show (and its television simulcast) came to an end. At least for a while. You can agree or disagree with the decision to pull his show, but what you can’t dispute is that it was pressure from consumers against advertisers that brought about the show’s demise.
Now, there are tens of millions more people who watch college football than ever listened to Don Imus on the radio. Plus, these tens of millions of BCS haters spend billions and billions of dollars on the products advertised during BCS games. Even a small minority of consumers choosing to switch away from their usual product selections for a month will be felt by these companies.
That’s why I’m encouraging fans not to support all the advertisers who bought commercial spots for the BCS games. But even that’s not enough. Instead support their competitors, the companies who weren’t willing to help prop up an illegitimate way to crown a champion.
Who are these advertisers? Well, we don’t know them all yet. That’s because Fox and ABC (here’s a link to last year’s advertisers on the Rose Bowl http://montaraventures.com/blog/2007/01/02/ad-nauseum-analysis-of-the-rose-bowl/) don’t release the names of their advertisers prior to the games. The individual companies can announce, however, and after searching the internet I’ve been able to find only two thus far.
1. All-State- For the month of January don’t even consider All State as your insurance provider. If you already have All State consider switching next January to a company that doesn’t support the BCS.
2. Taco Bell- I eat at Taco Bowl three or four times a month already. I really like this place. But, they’re dead to me for the month of January.
As the bowl season continues we’ll go ahead and continue to update you on which companies have been helping to propagate the BCS. Our boycott roster will grow and hopefully so will the number of college football fans who are also agreeing to swear off their products. At least this way you can do something other than sit around and complain about the BCS while you’re drinking at the bar. From one college football fan to another, Happy New Year. Labels: 2008 boycott the bcs advertisers column pulled from cbs sports
Posted by Clay Travis at 12:56 PM
 
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