Comment by sorenjan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sorenjan | Hacker News Reader

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I watched the Ironman world championships for women the other day (the men's race are happening right now) and it was so full of ads. Not only are the race named after a sponsor, even the aerial photography was "courtesy of Qatar airways", even when it was clearly from a helicopter and a cable mounted camera. The hosts took every opportunity to talk about their sponsors, at the podium ceremony the sponsor's car was more prominent than the winner, etc. And this is an event where the price of entry is more than $1000 for the thousands of participants, and they have to qualify by doing at least one other event from the same organisation previously.

Same thing with other American sport events, every single thing is "brought to you by x". It permeates everything.

To be fair sport sponsorships are a thing everywhere, just look at any team shirt or race car.

It's different though. I get what the OP is saying. It's happened in Aussie sports too - the commentators announcing any replay as the "Harvey Norman replay" during the NRL, as an example. Sponsorships of features of a programme stand out much more than sponsorship logos on jerseys, probably because you're much more actively focused on the commentary audio than you are on the particular images on a jersey of a player.

I got the men's event on now. Instead of "look at the time" it's "look at the time on the Wahoo Element" (a Wahoo Element is a particular sports watch). Instead of the swim leg it's the Roka swim leg (Roka makes wetsuits). There's a Vinfast logo on screen all the time (Vinfast is a car brand and the title sponsor).

It's not just the commercials (I've seen a beer commercial so far) or the brand logos on the athletes, it's the fact that every single thing is "courtesy of x", which means that even between the ad breaks the commentators has to talk about sponsors.

This is different from soccer games, cycling races live Tour de France, most world championships, etc. But I recognize it from UFC and various clips I've seen from NFL and other American sports.

It sounds like we have now entered the parody territory...

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