ESPN's Satyrical Ad Campaign

The commercial begins with Sportscenter anchor Larry Beil announcing that Sportscenter is considering filming with a live audience. They proceed to show the audience seats almost halfway filled, and most of those who are there are asleep. At this point, it becomes apparent that this commercial is a farce. Sportscenter is a news show that recaps daily sporting events and discusses possible future ones. A news show like this would have nothing to benefit from a live audience. A live audience would create an unnecessary distraction and hinder the viewer’s experience.

Larry Beil then begins to describe how people went crazy the night of the “bean bag buddy” giveaway. The crowd is shown going wild, screaming “bean bag buddies”, as the Miami Hurricane mascot brings them out. While there are some children in the audience, most of the people there are adults. ESPN is clearly

One aspect that makes ESPN’s satire so effective is that the Beanie Baby is portrayed as a cheap stuffed animal, with production costs probably no more than one dollar. Yet, the commercial shows people acting completely irrational in order to attain such a worthless commodity. This is best shown when the cameras then cut to a scene with Sportscenter anchor Dan Patrick haggling over the price of one with a young girl. Patrick offers it to her for three hundred dollars, but she responds “Two bills (both 100’s), take it or leave it!” This segment is a brilliant parody of a high dollar bartering session for a valuable Beanie Baby. This scene is effective because the actress is so young she cannot possible have a rational sense of money. However, in this scene, she says her line in a very indignant manor, as if Dan Patrick were withholding a resource mandatory for life.

showing here how childish the adults who collect these beanie babies are. The adults are interspersed with the children throughout the audience, and shown grabbing beanbag buddies away from young children. This commercial is a satire, but what makes it effective is that the actions taken by the adults in this scene are similar to what the commercial’s audience would envision in real collectors. While this commercial is intended to be humorous, ESPN is also ridiculing the hardcore Beanie Baby collectors.

Similarly to the Beanie Baby ad, this ad is very amusing. This appeals to those who don’t have children who collect Pokemon, yet find the fad to be ridiculous. ESPN needs this comic relief because all of their programming is sports-based, and is not humorous. By providing the viewer with one entertaining ad per commercial segment, the viewer’s attitude is dramatically different than if they were just focused on the sports the entire time. Sports-based television has known comic relief is a necessity to keep viewers watching for several years, however many networks have unsuccessfully tried different tactics to provide this comic relief. The best example would be ABC adding comedian Dennis Miller to their broadcasting booth for Monday Night Football. Miller turned out the be very annoying and interfered with the viewer’s intake of the football. By providing th

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