March Madness: Too Many TV Ads

Got a to-do list of household tasks tonight?  Feeling sorry for yourself because you want to watch the NCAA national championship game between Kansas and Memphis?  No problem.  TV’s over the top number of commercials will offer so many breaks in the game action you can tackle your tasks, too.

I am prepared for each commercial.  If I am feeling ambitious, I may do some stretching exercises, or in a rare moment knock off a few push ups.  I even find paying bills more pleasant than the commercial breaks.  And like other fans, I often reach for the remote and channel surf.

This rant isn’t directed at just the national championship game.  College basketball, profiting from the mega payday of television, has damaged its wonderful sport by allowing the networks too many commercials in each televised game.  From games in November right into April, fans in the arenas and watching at home have to either cope or flee from advertising pollution.

Each game has pre-determined commercial breaks that occur at approximately the 16, 12, eight and four minute marks of the two 20 minute halves.  That’s annoying enough, but there’s also the spontaneous timeouts called by coaches.

I recall a game where a coach called timeout within the first minute of the second half.  Then after viewers worked their way through a full run of commercials, the other coach called timeout within the second minute.  If you’re tracking this, you know what comes next: the obligatory 16 minute mark break in the action.  That’s three full rounds of commercials totaling at least six minutes while we saw about four minutes of game action.

Earlier this winter I turned on ESPN2 to watch the “end” of a game preceding the Michigan-Minnesota telecast.  It was approximately 7:50 p.m. when I tuned in and realized there were about six-plus minutes to play in the game.  At about 8:20 p.m. the game ended and the Gopher game was, of course, joined in progress.  Thirty minutes to play about six minutes thanks to timeouts and deliberate fouls to stop the game clock.  Outrageous!

In Saturday’s semi-final Final Four game between UCLA and Memphis there were seven commercial breaks in the first half.  Two of the breaks lasted about 30 seconds, the other five were over two minutes including one I clocked at 2:45 including CBS program promotion.  Commercials and promo messages totaled over 10 minutes in the first half.  The first half began at about 5:12 p.m. and ended at approximately 5:58 p.m. so it required about 46 minutes to play a 20 minute half of basketball.

No other major TV sport, including the NBA, allows so many timeouts and commercial breaks in such short spans of game action.  This is a disservice not only to the ad weary fans but also to the players who have fewer long stretches of uninterrupted play that are both a beauty to experience and watch.

College fans are bothered and even may be driven away by the problem.  Don’t be surprised if ratings are down for March’s NCAA tournament games.  Even if they’re not, you can be sure a lot of ads were never watched.  Go get the task list!