All These Commercials Make Us Wanna Roush

Dear Fenway Sports Group,

Hello there, friends. Boston Daily here. Like many Bostonians, we’re big fans of your baseball team.

Your baseball team. Baseball. We could not care less about your new venture in race cars. So, for the love of God, stop cramming it down our throats.

We were OK with Jerry Remy Day. It’s like Christmas—it’s magical at first, then gets stressful, and once the big day has come and gone, you’re secretly relieved you don’t have to do it again for another year.

But we are not cool with Roush Fenway Racing Day because Red Sox fans don’t care about NASCAR. At all. We really don’t want to listen to endless pregame commercials ceremonies involving the drivers and products affiliated with John Henry’s side project.

Eric Wilbur, who writes for boston.com, which is the online purveyor of the Globe, which is owned by the New York Times Co., which owns a stake in the Fenway Sports Group, absolutely slaughters last night’s witless pregame show by comparing it to the unholy experience that was watching baseball games in Montreal.

I watched the Red Sox try, yet again, to force NASCAR down our throats with an embarrassing display of its Roush Fenway racing team, which will make its way to Loudon this weekend. NESN went all out, cutting Nick Cafardo’s pregame notebook short (he was only delivering, you know, baseball news) in order to broadcast the pregame ceremony that about 11 folks in the park seemed to give a damn about.

For two nights this week I just wanted to watch a baseball game, and was instead greeted by an endless stream of “Praise Remy” and “Watch Car Racing” hammerings. It’s gotten to the point where you can’t wait for the Red Sox to be on the road, where there’s less chance of the Sox/NESN/Dunkin’ Donuts using the sport as a means to delivering their message of monetary importance.

Well played.

And just to drive the point home, we got a press release touting the appearance of two Red Sox-branded Ford Fusions at Loudon this weekend as we were writing this post.

Shouldn’t you be saving all the money you’re spending on these cross-promotions on something more worthwhile? Like paying Hazel Mae a salary that will keep her in town?

Sincerely,
Boston Daily