Rid Us Of The Pink

There is nothing funny about breast cancer. It's a serious disease with serious consequences however one of those consequences should not have to be watching a football game where grown warriors are dressed in pink.

Last night I had to not only stay up until midnight (see yesterday's post on sick-days) to watch JJ Watt singlehandedly blow up the Jets (yikes, bad analogy there) but I also had to watch pink shoes, pink hats, and even pink gloves (ok the gloves are pretty cool).

Why is the NFL pushing breast cancer awareness? As I said, I'm not against it but isn't awareness marketing all about knowing your audience and tailoring the message appropriately? I know there are reports that a lot of women watch football but I don't think it's that many. Baseball at least uses the pink bats and gloves on Mother's Day when it would be more appropriate. But MLB goes a step further and also has a campaign for prostate cancer awareness. Guess who watches a lot of sports? If you said MEN then you win. How come the NFL doesn't deck all their teams out in powder blue for a week?

The reason is simple. As Mel Brooks once said, "It's all about the merchandising." The NFL knows they can be market all these pink items to their female audience I am addition to all of the regular team merchandise they move the rest of the year. Guys aren't buying the pink stuff it's only the women. If the league decided to add a whole line of blue products for prostate cancer who would buy them? The men have already bought all of the team merchandise in the team colors. The women have already bought all the pic merchandise for breast cancer awareness. The only group left to buy for are the animals. And where are they going to get the money from?

All that is left to do is to make sure that our wallets are high in the tree along with our garbage less the Bears figure out how to use our credit cards to buy all of their friends customized Chicago Bears jerseys. Somebody call Ranger Smith.