After These Messages

The shift to streaming means a shift to on-demand entertainment, an opportunity to watch, listen, or play what you want, when you want. We've spent all sorts of time at Remap talking about the luxury of entertainment and how we choose to spend our time, but one thing Rob and Patrick have in common, as any Remap reader knows, is sports.

The reason companies continue to pay so much for sports packages, and will continue to do so, is because it's event viewing. The moment a sporting event is over, it loses value. But appointment viewing is powerful, because it's a guarantee of putting butts in (virtual) seats. These days, that's rare.

If you were lucky enough to buy an early TiVo box, technology companies were using their power for good and completely eliminating ads from the viewing experience. Now, technology has been leveraged to ensure you're getting the most targeted, specific ads, none at all, or seemingly the same ad over and over.

Rob and Patrick watch a lot of ads. And they have thoughts.

Rob: Okay Patrick, we’re a few weeks into the football season, we’ve had some great playoff baseball, the WNBA is wrapped and the NBA is getting rolling. Which means we have probably seen more TV commercials than we have in months and I have to ask… are there any you absolutely hate yet?

It’s not quite as bad right now as during the football playoffs or the NBA playoffs, where companies just go wild with their ad budgets and you start getting smothered by new campaigns. But I always find myself morbidly fascinated by the ads you see during major sports events, because they both tell you which companies are making so much money they can afford to just saturate the airwaves, and they tell you what those companies want to portray about themselves and your relationship to their product.

I think one of the darkest ads I see is the Eric Andre FanDuel ad?

This is basically just encouraging compulsive gambling, right? This dude is sitting down to enjoy the games except he’s not really watching the games, he’s getting constant intrusive thoughts about side-bets and parlays he could play the instant he gets the impulse because the FanDuel app is right there on his phone. Except it’s not scary or sinister because it’s just Eric Andre doing goofy little bits about each of the wagers he proposes. Wormtongue, but make it Millennial Comedy.

It also feels like it marks a bit of a shift since the gambling apps were first blanketing commercial breaks. We’re not showing Jamie Foxx leading you into the exclusive club that is the MGM sports book, telling you how much better the things you love can make you feel if you just lay a little wager on them. The “new user acquisition” phase of the online betting rollout appears to be ending, at least for FanDuel, so now you’re getting ads that are about increasing engagement. Which feels like a bad thing when we’re talking about betting! The ad isn’t even for anyone who is not already gambling pretty regularly: the guy is alone in his apartment, apparently friendless, sitting down to track all the games via Sunday Ticket while being haunted by ideas for other wagers he could place. I feel like if you’re thinking this way, you might already be in some trouble. 

Yet there he is, multiple times a game, thinking about how good it’d be to bet the fucking Broncos. Just in case it wasn’t already clear that they’re trying to micro-target people who love gambling and completely suck at it.

Patrick: C’mon, Rob. You’re telling me these exploitative ads are worse than No Flex Zone x Wingstop?

This ad literally started playing while I was fucking writing this, watching the opening of the NBA season.

I’ve been low stakes gambling on sports for the better part of 10 years. Before it was “legal” in my state, all you had to do was sign up for a website that could tap into a Las Vegas sportsbook—in my case, Bovada—and dump some money in. The UI wasn’t sexy, but it worked. For me, betting was a way to create more friction and investment while watching sports in the same vein as fantasy football, which I’ve been doing for more than 10 years. One of my leagues goes further back, with a group of friends from college. At one point, I was probably doing four fantasy football leagues at once? It’s helpful to have more than one going, in case you’re slammed with a bunch of injuries and your entire roster basically falls apart.

Those fantasy leagues? There’s an entry fee every year, one that’s gone up as we’ve gotten older. 

Which is all to say there’s a running theme of wanting to stack additional tension while watching sports. 

Gambling, like fantasy football, is a mixture of luck and skill. It’s mostly luck, but you can improve your odds by being smart. I find it fun, I don’t overspend, and my bets are usually a couple of bucks. A little money goes in, a little money comes out. I’ve never even exported my winnings to a bank account, because I just roll it over to the next season, or event. Winning a bunch of money isn’t even the point.

In the old days, though, betting itself had friction. You’re signing up for a weird website. It feels a little sketchy. Gambling itself had a stink on it—it was for degenerates and that one guy you know. Now, it’s branded as cool. FanDuel, man, is slick. I highly recommend downloading it and poking at the UI, because what you’re going to find is something pretty fucking gross. I cannot fathom how much they’ve spent on psychological studies to understand the different ways they tickle your brain to make you bet more, with all the fancy colors and splashy visuals tricks drawing your attention to different ways to spend your money.

I have rules. I have a process. I don’t have a problem. But if I didn’t? These apps are cruel boxes.