NCAA should ban coaches from endorsements/ads during tourney
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JoeUser Forums
I'm sure I'll get slapped around for my stance here, especially since it's clear that I'm a Maryland Terrapin fan, so my complaint could easily be seen as one of jealousy and envy, but I hope folks will bear with me, listen to or read my argument and perhaps determine that they agree with me.
During the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament, as I'm sure also happens during the NCAA Womens Basketball Tournament, as I'm also sure happens during the Football Bowl games, and in similar events, we the viewers and fans are treated to a wonderful barrage of advertisements. Most of them for beer, or food, restaurants, and occassionally for cars or trucks.
I have no problem with the advertisements in general (I'm not a big fan of them, but I know they help to pay the bills so that I get to watch the events at home, on my TV, for free), but I do have something stuck in my craw over the fact that many of the commercials I'm recalling this season and hearing this season are the car advertisements with Coach K. from Duke touting some GM automobile.
The whole thing irritates the crap out of me, as I know in the double speaking world of the NCAA there are tons of rules and prohibitions banning recruiting except during certain periods of time, all in the name of fairness, all designed to keep coaches from getting a leg up on each other in chasing the best recruits.
I believe, quite thoroughly, that the NCAA needs to exercise the same prohibitions on their coaches that they exercise on their players, and prevent their coaches from being used as endorsers of products. For the same reasons that they don't want the players doing the endorsing, and even more importantly, because letting the coaches act as endorsers is buying those coaches free recruiting time, getting their pretty (or in the case of Coach K. ugly) mugs on the tube, or their voices on the radios, where mommas, pappas, uncles, aunts, gramps, and grannies are seeing those faces and helping to decide where their future star players are going to go and perform.
I understand that there is a big advantage for the teams that get into the tournament, as they do get notoriety for their schools, and that is an acceptable benefit and reward for the hard work a team puts into their regular season in an effort to get into the tournaments and bowls. What is unacceptable to me is that these coaches are getting the free face time based in some part on past reputation, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the future.
I hope that some time soon the NCAA gets off their high-horses and addresses the issue I'm writing about here and perhaps levels the playing field a bit more. It only seems fair.
During the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament, as I'm sure also happens during the NCAA Womens Basketball Tournament, as I'm also sure happens during the Football Bowl games, and in similar events, we the viewers and fans are treated to a wonderful barrage of advertisements. Most of them for beer, or food, restaurants, and occassionally for cars or trucks.
I have no problem with the advertisements in general (I'm not a big fan of them, but I know they help to pay the bills so that I get to watch the events at home, on my TV, for free), but I do have something stuck in my craw over the fact that many of the commercials I'm recalling this season and hearing this season are the car advertisements with Coach K. from Duke touting some GM automobile.
The whole thing irritates the crap out of me, as I know in the double speaking world of the NCAA there are tons of rules and prohibitions banning recruiting except during certain periods of time, all in the name of fairness, all designed to keep coaches from getting a leg up on each other in chasing the best recruits.
I believe, quite thoroughly, that the NCAA needs to exercise the same prohibitions on their coaches that they exercise on their players, and prevent their coaches from being used as endorsers of products. For the same reasons that they don't want the players doing the endorsing, and even more importantly, because letting the coaches act as endorsers is buying those coaches free recruiting time, getting their pretty (or in the case of Coach K. ugly) mugs on the tube, or their voices on the radios, where mommas, pappas, uncles, aunts, gramps, and grannies are seeing those faces and helping to decide where their future star players are going to go and perform.
I understand that there is a big advantage for the teams that get into the tournament, as they do get notoriety for their schools, and that is an acceptable benefit and reward for the hard work a team puts into their regular season in an effort to get into the tournaments and bowls. What is unacceptable to me is that these coaches are getting the free face time based in some part on past reputation, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the future.
I hope that some time soon the NCAA gets off their high-horses and addresses the issue I'm writing about here and perhaps levels the playing field a bit more. It only seems fair.
