The Sport Ad Body

Just do it. Be tough. Protect this house. Paired with these slogans to bring out your inner tough and bad-ass athlete are images of serious, gritty, and highly muscular culture-changing bodies that are now synonymous with the ads. This Gatorade commercial is the epitome of a sports ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwhTYFwfACA

Aspiring athletes and sports fans see this and thing “wow, I want this.” They see these ripped bodies of the hardened, “bad-ass” athlete and they think “sports should be more like this” or “I want to play like this.” They see these bodies and want the moments, the glory plays, the unnecessary roughness that is shown in almost any sports advertisement. Now, from that, the culture of the sporting event is changed. Everyone is looking for the glory moments, and athletes are more and more trying to give them. No longer are sports about smart plays and finesse, but are about brutality and power. It is what fans want, and what athletes want to do. For example, every soccer fan and even some non-soccer fans remember the USA women’s world cup team beating Brazil in the last few minutes of overtime on an awesome-looking header goal from Amy Wambach. That is what the game is remembered for: that one goal. It was an amazing game from not even one minute of the entire 120 minutes of play. Now, if you look at the other 119 minutes, you might see another story. I mean, the top goalie in the world let in two goals, and even though the US scored two as well (until the last minute of play), they were not connecting on passes very well and looked very flat. But, because we are trained by these bodies in sports ads, we think that this game defined “the beautiful game.”