Rick’s Rants and Raves

Below is a letter I sent to the Columbus Destroyers this evening via their website “Contact Us” form.

My wife and I attended a few Destroyers games last year, and decided to become season ticket holders this year. We enjoy many aspects of the games, but there has been one aspect that greatly bothers us: the nearly constant advertising during the games. From the 1800 Tequila Yellow Flag, to the Giant Eagle Get Go Zone, to the Janitorial Services Clean Sweep and the Germain Auto Group Game Balls, we feel less like fans and more like advertising targets. The level of sponsorship significantly detracts from our enjoyment of the game as it distracts us from the sport itself. I fully understand that Arena Football is a business, and as such needs to make money. As one of your customers, I have options choices: provide feedback to help improve the service, or take my money elsewhere. For now, I’m choosing the former approach. Please find ways to decrease the in-game sponsorship.

We were bothered by the frequency of in-game ads last year, but decided to give season tickets a shot when they offered a greatly reduced season ticket package. We have been tempted to buy something like this counter to keep track of all the audible advertisements during a game. It really is distracting to have the announcer say “There’s an 1800 Tequila Yellow Flag on the play!” and have the liquor logo appear on the big screen, rather than just say “Flag on the play”. When we watch other area sports (e.g. Blue Jacket’s hockey), the sponsor ship is saved for the breaks in the game. When we watch pro-football on TV, the sponsors are only mentioned during the commercial breaks, or when introducing the analysis commentators. I also understand that the sponsorship might reduce the price of my tickets (that, and there doesn’t seem to be much demand for them). But when the advertising invades my enjoyment of the product, it has gone too far. I like that Columbus has the Destroyers, and we have fun at the games. But it would be much more fun (and we’d be likely to spend more money!) if we weren’t so distracted by the ads.

Well, now we’ll see just how fan-centric the team really is.

Update 4/4/08: No response.

My new pet peeve: People who shovel their drives, but not their sidewalks. We got a record amount of snow this past weekend, and I understand that some people are simply not capable of shoveling at all. We live in a wonderful neighborhood where people actually walk on the sidewalks. There are three schools within 10 minutes walking distance of my house, and dozens of kids (maybe hundreds) from kindergarten to high school walk down our street every school day. Some people shoveled their drives so that THEY could get their cars out, but couldn’t be BOTHERED to shovel their sidewalks. This creates a dangerous situation for the kids trying to walk to school as they are forced to walk in the street, rather than through the 15 inches of snow on the sidewalk. That, to me, is incredibly selfish.

Kudos to the residents of Blue Ash: the entire length of Blue Ash was shoveled (on one side) for a whole block. We walked to the Y down Blue Ash late Sunday evening, and had to divert to the street for the one segment of sidewalk that hadn’t been shoveled. Fortunately, the owner was on his front porch, and took notice. By the time we returned from exercising, his walk was shoveled. Well done, sir.

OK, I was wrong. Blu-ray is not dead, the HD-DVD is.

We recently joined a local YMCA for family fun and fitness. Both the kids are enrolled in a street hockey program and are loving it. I’ve started on their Fitstart program, and am finding that working out at 6AM is actually quite stimulating and maintainable (well, for 10 days so far…).

The worst part about it? I’ve driven to the Y every time except once. Yes, it’s winter. Yes, time has been tight (for workouts and practices), but still… Google maps reports it as 0.2 miles, “about 51 secs” of drive time. The one time I walked (last Saturday) it took no more than 5 minutes. I feel incredibly guilty that I’m driving such a pathetically short distance to exercise. The weather has been crappy, so that is my primary excuse. “No sense in twisting an ankle on the ice while trying to get buff” I tell myself. But some people walk three miles to work. In. The. Snow.

Damn do-gooders. I guess I’ll have to start walking to the YMCA. But it will be such a challenge.

The final insult on my guilt came this week when I drove Emily and Nathan to hockey practice. It was snowing a bit, and was in the teens. Emily exclaimed “Boy, I sure am glad we don’t have to walk here.” You’ve got to be kidding me, I told her with exasperation. She persisted, it was really cold and she wasn’t wearing any gloves! Oh, the horror. I pointed out that if we had been planning on walking, she would have been wearing the appropriate attire. Were driving not an option, we probably wouldn’t push our departure time to “about 51 secs” prior to the start of practice.