Ending the NFL Ref Situation in 15 minutes.

The NFL is king.  They are the biggest, baddest brand on the planet.  The NFL is this nations best made television broadcast.  The drama, the violence, the commercials glamorizing beer and sex.  And it's reality.

But the product is compromised.  Sure we can defend the NFL all we want, it is still a great incredible league, but you know it's not the product that had been delivered year after year.  The replacement refs, while doing their best, are NOT as good as the pros.  It's just that simple.

So we as the public consumer need the refs back, how do you put pressure on the NFL to make them understand that?  As fans we want the product as a whole but not as it is currently constructed.  How do we put pressure on that size of a business?

Don't buy it.

Now when I'm watching the television, I'm not technically buying anything, so it's ridiculous to suggest to the general public to not watch the games at home or at bars.  Nor is it realistic.  But what about the fans going to the game?

Imagine this.   Imagine that on Week 4, that EVERY single NFL stadium opened for the first quarter,  until about roughly 1:35...with an empty stadium.  The ticket holders still planning to go in mind you, but not until after the First Quarter ends.  (You could shoot for Thursday, but I don't think the plan has enough momentum at this point.)

Each and every stadium would lose money for that 35 minutes.  No fans in the stadium means:

No food sales.
No beer sales.
No merchandise sale.
No future ticket sales.

For 35 minutes, every single business existing within every single NFL stadium would generate 0 real dollars.

Further more the empty stadium paints a sad picture, and brings out all the sponsors that are a part of the NFL.

Tell me, what kind of company wants to be looked at when a stadium is empty over a labor issue?

An empty stadium, for one quarter signals to the owners a clearly unhappy fan base.  It means unrest and uncertainty, so new business partners would be more hesitant to join.  Existing partners would think about jumping ship to another sport (possibly a revitalized NBA product who will not be competing most likely with Hockey)

This would be considered a warning to owners, that as fans of a product, we are not satisfied.  We are not looking for another provider of the product, but we want a better one than you are providing.

I would like to execute this plan if possible.  I am a fan of the NFL, but I'm a lone voice and in order to execute this plan I would need a bit of a NATIONAL voice.  I am sending this blog to every single member of the sports media that might be able to get the message out.  I do not have tickets to an Eagles game this week, which is my favorite team...but if I did, I would spend my time talking to fellow Eagles fan to protest this game.  These officials are bad, so bad it could cost us a game.  That cannot happen. 

For 15 minutes, no one will be watching the NFL live and in a stadium.  Sure, they'll get numbers from television, but those numbers cannot necessarily be counted on for future product consumption.  A fair amount of the country would no doubt just turn in to see a football game played with no real fans.

Again, I believe it would just take 15 minutes.

The NFL would have to cave, the thought of a second incident, possibly one lasting longer (say until halftime) or a stadium empty for the whole game would be enough to put the financial pressure on the NFL to just DO THE RIGHT THING.

So with that in mind....If you are an NFL fan, and you want the replacement ref situation solved, than talk about a simple protest, of not entering until the second quarter.

I know, as I send this blog to some of the voices in the sports journalism community, there will be skepticism to vocalize these views as their own, but you don't have to.  Assign them to me.  And then talk about the pros and cons of my idea.   Especially if it is executed nationwide.  At the very least you have another interesting topic to present in your newspapers, podcasts, radio, and television shows.


So that's the plan.

If you have tickets to a game in the NFL this week, any one of them, and you want to make a difference, you want your referees back and competent, YOU can exert pressure by just not walking into the stadium until after the 1st quarter.

That's how you can get what you want from the Biggest Baddest brand in America.  All in 15 minutes.

Get rid of your boring day job, get rid of your boring life!

If you stay up late, whether it be from studying, a late night job, partying, or just plain insomnia, you will run into some of the most bizarre commercials ever seen.  And the kinds of commercials are always amusing as that's the most prevalent time for what I like to call "Loser" commercials.

The 'Loser' commercial comes in many varieties mind you.  It can range from being out of shape to needing a boost in the bedroom to not being culturally satisfied and needing to learn a new language.

For the physical angle you are mostly looking at commercials dealing with diet pills, exercise benches, or a special DVD program.  The more humorous ones are the special clothing designed to make you 'look' less fat, or have boobs or something.  Get big, strong and lean if you're a guy.  Get a toned flat stomach if you're a girl.  Be the appropriate height.

Now in these commercials typically you'll see like a 7-8 scale good looking person.  They're never stunningly beautiful, but just better looking then probably the average person.  They look like what we might think the average consumer would look like if they tried such and such product.

Now for me, I find these commercials ridiculous.  Their is no magic program, no product that will take the place of the fundamentals of having a healthy body.  It's a simple combination of will and discipline.  With those in place, a simple routine of just about anything for exercise and a balanced healthy diet, one can achieve a fit toned body.

No one needs to really have a fit and toned body to be a good person mind you.   But that's what they're selling you.  That after they become this fit person, everything in their life goes from crummy and miserable to 'holy &*%*  look how ripped am I am!?!  I'm the hottest bitch in this place.  Oh I'm totally killing it at work now, thanks *blah blah blah*'.

But not all losers care about is their body's some of them really take pride in their intelligence.  Perhaps the person staying up late needs to foster their creative side more and pursue a career in art.  Or learn a new language.

By the way, I don't know a single person who has had this impulse.  Most people know by their Senior year of high school whether they like a foreign language or not.  None of my friends that I know are venting to me that they really regret not knowing how to say 'which way to the bus station?' in German when they live in North Carolina. 

The next category is barely in the 'loser' bracket, but I think it has to make it.  The Gadget commercial.  This has two takes on it.  One being YOU are the creator of a gadget, you just don't know it yet.  This one famously starts with a caveman carving a wheel, essentially suggesting that essentially 'If a caveman can do it....'  They flash to some family man that made either the best water slide ever, or a Nerf flying helicopter that has a video camera.  ( Which doesn't exist, but would be sweet!).

If you can't invent gadgets, well at least you might as well buy gadgets right?  Like a new 5 way chopper for salads?   Or the safest chainsaw ever (Even grandma can hack down hard limbs!)?  And of course, you got to, got to, got to have a slap chop.

With slap chop guy we also get into a small venture of Late Night sales guy.  Now this person usually does double duty as daytime sales guy but his ads rarely go into the spectrum of prime time, (Morning, evening to 11 pm.).  This guy usually speaks loudly and aggressively, and for some reason always seems to be wearing a shade of blue.

These are dubbed over by, which I find far funnier than the real thing but delivers my point.

Mighty Putty

Kaboom!

Oxi Clean

Big credit to Jaboody dubs for creating those gems and one Rodney Bohner for introducing me to the items.  Good stuff.

I don't know what if any affects their might be for watching so many of these commercials at a time might be, though I would guess the effects to be mostly depressing.  Having been a member of the late night community for some time now having worked at a bar for the past 5 or so years and having been a late night college student, I've observed this trend for sometime without really reflecting on it.

Have the commercials affected me?  To some degree I would have to say yes. At first my thought is to say that the commercials made me depressed, but that's not true.  At first it made me just want whatever it was they were selling, be it a get rich quick scheme, a body that looked like it was carved from granite, a blanket that is molded like a robe, which is cool, but looks like something you can ONLY wear to an Easter egg hunt.  I wanted all of them.

But I knew that desire would be soon fleeting.  Replaced with the knowledge of who I was and being OK with that person.  Perhaps the commercials might have done some motivating when it comes to being healthy and attempting to pursue whatever goal I might be pursuing.

Next time you're up late, and your channel surfing, make a note of some of the commercials you see and how many promise a better version of you or a happier you.  The results are staggering, but in the end you should never ever take them seriously.