Apparently I’m rapidly fading from ESPN’s target demographic. This became painfully clear to me over the holiday season, with ESPN’s Bowl Week promotion, featuring Atlantic’s hip-hop artist B.O.B. performing "I Am The Champion":
It’s not that ESPN is promoting an up and coming rapper, I understand that marketing decision. It’s the title and lyrics of the selection — the underlying marketing message. It reminds me of Toby Keith’s intentionally humorous tune called "I Wanna Talk About Me." Now, call me old fashioned, but I still think of football as a team sport. So, I’ll have to admit I was a bit confused by ESPN’s musical choice for promoting Bowl Week with a tune that selfishly promotes "I" and individual performance, instead of "We," teamwork, and team performance.
As a result, my humbly suggested New Year’s Resolution for ESPN is to consider promoting teamwork when the topic of the day is a team sport, and to perhaps re-tool the B.O.B. video and reserve it for the promotion of individual sports like boxing, bodybuilding, surfing, judo, table tennis, croquet, and chess. "I am" makes more sense than "We are" for these sports.
Anyway, I’m wondering what’s wrong with Queen’s classic "We are the Champions" power ballad for team sports like football, especially during Bowl Week?