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‘Bigger picture, Babcock anticipates a less-commercialized approach throughout the season on Lane’s $4 million video board, which debuted last season. Relentless in-stadium sales pitches were among the primary fan complaints cited in a June essay by John U. Bacon, author of “Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football.” Bacon’s online post focused on the University of Michigan, where he teaches, but was read widely by administrators elsewhere such as Babcock.’

So if you’re a Virginia Tech student, this is how it goes: Your money helped pay for the brand new multimillion dollar Adzillatron in the football stadium. But the Adzillatron (as this blog has for years noted) is an Adzillatron, and has as its function the relentless shrieking of commercials at you. For some reason, you don’t like relentless shrieking commercials, so you’ve stopped going to games to get away from them.

Now your highly compensated ADs and coaches have a problem. Either they lose a lot of ad revenue by cutting back on the shrieking, or they lose you.

Remember: They used your money to buy the Adzillatron last year. For years it’s been known that fans hate Adzillatrons. Even if it weren’t widely known, what does it say about your school’s attitude toward you that it’s sure you’ll be fine with relentless shrieking advertisements on immense unignorable screens?

I think it says that your school thinks you’re an idiot, ripe for any form of exploitation.

Oh, but now! Now, within months of its installation, it’s clear that you hate the Adzillatron so much you are fleeing the premises. What does that say about you? What is your university learning about you? That you’re not a sucker willing to endure any frequency and intensity of huckstering? So now, wisely and graciously, your new athletic director announces his discovery that you don’t like Adzillatron ads and he’s going to go easy on them… I mean, somewhat easy… Because after all he’s pretty trapped – you aren’t; you can flee – but he’s trapped. The school has bought the thing on the projection of certain ad revenues…

Margaret Soltan, July 17, 2014 7:04AM
Posted in: sport

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