Star, stripes and a sponsored crab

Born in the U (unbelievable) S (sums of) A (advertising)

Having never crossed the pond I was not going to miss the opportunity a family wedding gave me, an excuse to visit the U.S of A and “oh Canada”. 

During my time here in Barcelona the accumulation of friends from different nationalities has been endless, Lichtensteinian, Panamanian, Australian and the occasional Brazilian. Being part of this group of “extranjeros” has seen a lot of people come and go. This holiday would give me the chance to catch up with some old amigos, and there was no way I wasn't going to a sporting event in America. “Take me out to the ball game,Take me out with the crowd”. 

After an small lifetime on a plane across the Atlantic, a good few hours drive ( and including a pit stop at a gas station where they did sell Twinkies and leopard print revolvers at the same counter), destination one of six was reached. With my knowledge of America being drawn from ‘Friends’, movies and rather too much satirical political comedy, I expected coffee shops, superheroes and Trump for President posters to drape the windows. I was not disappointed. Middle of nowhere was the address of our quite literal cabin in the woods, so the chances of attending a sports game seemed slim, however our hosts had booked tickets and a hotel in Baltimore for a night at the baseball watching the home team Oriols host the A’s. After two packed days in the wilds of Virginia a night Baltimore seeing sport was going to be the icing on a very American cake. 

The greeting as we came into the city was a giant football (the funny-shaped ball kind not “that soccer kind”) stadium. Maybe it is just growing up with standing terraces and stadiums looking as if they could have been older than the United States but I'm still blown away by massive sporting arenas. Some of my favorite places in Barcelona are the  ’92 Olympic venues. Hotel found and car parked, the pre game rituals commenced. The local beer, blazing orange with a baseball player on it, and chicken wings were consumed before the walk down to the stadium to watch a game I knew nothing about, just that baseball was kinda like cricket but with fewer cucumber sandwiches. Of course being a Raith fan on tour, an old strip was being worn as we made our way thru the branded this and merchandised that, and just as we were about the hit the security check there’s a sign that tonight's game was gonna be good: this stadium was just off Pratt street, just like Stark’s Park!

Selfie taken and finally inside, wow, to me it was like a stairwell at Hogwarts. Escalators going up, round and down. Brightly coloured merchandise stands with balls, bats and bunnets. Food kiosks with beer, the famous peanuts, and pretzels the size of yer head. We're not in Fife anymore Toto! This was a far cry from a scalding hot bovril and a lukewarm macaroni pie. Before hands were to be occupied by beer n peanuts I decided to take a browse at the $10 programme. After a quick flick of the pages I chose not to buy it. Call me old fashioned but I want something to read not a catalogue. Like most magazines the first 10 pages are dedicated to advertising and articles cut up between publicity. 

That was it, now that I had noticed the advertising there was no escaping. Even the digital crab cartoon race that played out on the big screens to kill time between innings “ was brought to you by” some product. That became the phrase of the night “brought to you by……….”. However this wasn't the first time I had witnessed this amount of advertising in sport. It does seem that in any game, pretty much any sport if something is still long enough it can be branded. But did I notice it in the way the advertisers want? 

Advertising has been part of football for years, from the wooden billboards hung onside of terraces to fans buying replica strips branded with a variety of logos, if we are honest football probably wouldn't have survived without advertising but is it becoming too big a part of the game? Do we want our penalty kicks brought to us by Nando’s after seeing a player being sent of by the red card of Greggs? 

Understandably smaller clubs have to, need to, be part of the ad game. Guaranteed income is nothing to sniffed at, and space to sell as advertising limited, web pages, billboards and programmes need to be utilised. Club magazines and programmes have to cover costs and nowadays smartphones provide most people's halftime entertainment, sales have to be dropping. But what do you do, take the money and provide a bare bones programme bulked up with ads, or do you try and provide something filled to the brim with entertaining reads for both sets of fans. The second option is going to be hard and with dwindling away support and dropping home gates everywhere, the many volunteers who run our clubs’ programmes are left with no choice. But is this the choice that fans, bloggers, writers and match reporters want? 

 

You can take the girl out of Fife but she always finds home! 

A little different from the "lager lovlies" we used to know