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National Mall follies

Corporate sponsors spend millions to broadcast TV special from federal property.

Date published: 9/4/2003

'Kickoff Live' is commercialism at its worst

DON'T BUY Pepsi Vanilla. That might be a simple way for Americans to express their distaste for tonight's commercial desecration of the National Mall, courtesy of the National Football League and a handful of corporate spon- sors.

"Kickoff Live 2003" is designed, organizers say, to start the NFL season, which begins tonight with a game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Jets, with a bang. But we know better. It is not football that matters here. This gaudy affair is to football as prostitution is to women. It is there to make money for someone else.

ABC, which is televising the live special from the Mall, is obviously a willing partner in the glitzy lead-in to its inaugural football season broadcast. In addition to Pepsi, sponsors include Coors beer, Reebok, America Online, Verizon, the New York Stock Exchange, and perhaps the most topical sponsor of all, the new movie "Fighting Temptations."

The National Park Service, which oversees the Mall, had to approve the exhibition. The $10 million anted up by those corporate sponsors evidently made the decision easier for federal officials. That's a shame, because this deal sets a precedent for the abuse of grounds that are at America's heart. Is this really a precedent we want to set? How about we just go ahead and slap a Capital One logo on the U.S. Capitol and and one from General Motors--or maybe Toyota--on the Washington Monument?

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by such a nauseating commercial display. Companies have to be "out there" to keep up with one another. The corporate mentality is no longer satisfied to foster public relations with its clientele, but rather to shove its message down the collective, conspicuous consumer throat. Offering this up with the gyrations of babe superstars like Britney Spears makes it all easier to swallow for the predominantly male football viewership.

The question is whether Americans will ever get their fill, and send their own clear message in return.

AND SPEAKING of football, here come those endless commercial breaks with R-rated movie commercials and promos for the networks' prime-time programming.

Fox promises to be the worst offender again this year. One of its new shows, "Skin," may take its name from the plot's racial overtones, but it is already being promoted in accordance with the word's sexual connotations.

Racy and violent promos are taking the family fun out of watching NFL telecasts. The networks clearly want to capitalize on the demographics of their football audiences, but it is a disservice to families sensitive to the messages about sex and violence that these advertisements repeatedly hammer into impressionable young minds.

The football-broadcasting networks would do well to clean up their game-day promotional acts.

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Date published: 9/4/2003