The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/sports/2007/08/24/infomercials_pervade

August 24, 2007 > Sports > Infomercials pervade, skew one Owls fan’s view

Infomercials pervade, skew one Owls fan’s view

By Dylan Farmer | Thresher Editorial Staff

So, at the end of every semester, when my sleep cycle is relegated to fewer hours than I can count on one hand and my typical “day” lasts until 4 a.m., I reach a phase I like to call “survival by infomercial.” It’s a state of existence dictated more by necessity than by any real love of that particular type of programming, because I’ve discovered that with 10 pages of essay down and 15 more to go by a little after dawn, the refreshment achieved by watching 15 minutes of washed-up celebrities plugging unusual products is even greater than that derived from a bottle or three of No-Doz and a few cans of Red Bull.

Why am I sharing this information with you? Well, this is the first Thresher of the year, which includes, inevitably, the Thresher Sports Editor’s column shamelessly plugging Rice athletics. For those of you who have read past editions of that column, you are familiar with the traditional structure — the rant about how Rice athletics are both underappreciated and underattended. But this year, I decided the content deserved a novel and refreshing presentation, and as I discussed earlier, there’s nothing more refreshing than an infomercial.

[Start program with cheesy intro music]

Tired of overpaying for over-hyped state school athletics? Think Texas A&M is a cult, or that the Longhorns’ burnt orange is the ugliest color in the world? Wish you could root for sports teams void of drug suspensions and recruiting controversies?

New students! Transfers! I’m Dylan Farmer, Thresher sports editor extraordinaire. You may remember me from such sports columns as “The Vick Brothers: Ambassadors for sportsmanship,” and “Cleveland, Ohio — where a championship is perpetually around the corner!”

Today, I’m here to tell you about a phenomenal offer, one you’ll never be able to turn down: How would you like to see bowl-caliber Division-I football games without getting sucked dry by admission prices? How about being able to stupport a team that came just one point short of playing for the 2006 Conference USA championship? How about watching an All-American receiver who doubled as one of three finalists for last year’s Biletnikoff award — the honor presented to the best receiver in all of college football?

But wait — there’s more!

What would you say to watching a baseball team that has won 11 consecutive conference titles dating back to 1997 and a national championship in 2003? What about a team that finished at No. 3 overall for the past two years? How about a ball club that, just last season, produced a C-USA record 14 MLB draftees, as well as the 14th first-round selection in the program’s storied history?

But wait — there’s more!

How about watching a women’s basketball program that has recorded 11 straight winning seasons, 8 of which ended with bids into postseason play? Or what about a men’s basketball program that produced the 25th overall selection in the 2007 NBA draft?

How much would you be willing to pay for this amount of Division-I sportage? $400? $500? At a certain big-name state school obsessed with the color maroon, you might pay more than $1000 just for those four sports alone, but here at Rice, the athletics department is pleased to offer you all three seasons’ worth of athletics for only 90 dollars! That’s right, just 90 dollars!

But wait — there’s more!

As soon as you send in your one-time fee, you’ll also get a full year’s worth of:

— Women’s track and cross country, winners of three C-USA championships in the past two years. — Men’s track and cross country, consistent producers of NCAA-qualifying athletes. — Women’s volleyball, which returns 10 of 11 lettermen and brings in the one of the strongest recruiting classes in recent memory

End of article

Back to top