The Josh Innes Show - Stop Bitching About Commercials During Sporting Events

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

I was reading a story from Awful Announcing about how a 15 second commercial aired during the 9th inning of last nights ALCS. For whatever reason, people are appalled by this. If this bothers you, you have no concept of how the world works and you fly around with Peter Pan. My other favorite is people bitching about the short commercials on Red Zone. Get over it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. All right, everybody. Welcome in, all up in us. Better late than never. My bad.

I was up until about 3 o'clock in the morning. And I slept in until about 5. So I slept two hours, basically. Actually, I actually set the alarm initially for 4. So I slept for a little over an hour. Then the alarm went off at 4 and I said, screw this. I'm going to sleep another hour.

And that may end up being the new normal. Not going to sleep at three, but the new normal may be waking up at five and then getting you the podcasts early in the afternoon. I'd rather get them to you early in the morning. I know you'd rather have them early in the morning. I'd like to give them to you early in the morning. And maybe I can still give you a couple of them early and then some in the afternoon. Like an old school newspaper.

Hey, we get the morning edition and the afternoon edition. But, man, I'm getting my ass kicked by getting up at 3.45. It is inhuman to get up at 3.45. And I get that I'm not going to do a real job. I respect that I'm not going to do a real job. But getting up at 3.45, it completely alters the way you live your life. Let me play a couple commercials. We'll get into that and some other stuff.

That's annoying. What? You're a muffler. You don't hear it? Oh, I don't even notice it. I usually drown it out with the radio. How's this? Oh, yeah?

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new Cravable Raps are made for the times your boss said the what now or your teacher mentions that thingamab need to pick me up snack back to reality with Tim's new cravable raps available in Chipotle or Ranch plus tax at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time getting up at 345 is not normal because it completely changes the way you live your life the second I get done with work all I'm thinking about is well I'm going to have to go to bed at some point because I'm getting up at 3.45. And I don't know why getting up at 5 feels so much different than 345. I mean, we're talking about a difference of an hour and 15 minutes. But getting up at 5 almost feels normal. It still balls early, but it feels normal. 345 is middle

of the night. Like dudes who like work different shifts, I guess, get up at 345. Garbage men get up at 345. I'm not ripping those people. I appreciate that they exist. But my ass shouldn't be getting up at 3.45. I also feel like at times when I do the podcast at 345, I get up at 3.45, I get here at 430. I feel like I lack the juice, like the mental clarity. I feel like my brain doesn't work. I feel like my energy isn't there. So maybe I need to go back to doing the podcast after I get off the air instead of before I get on the air. Because as it stands, maybe I'll do one. Because if I get up at 5 and I get here by like 520, I may be able to knock out one pod, maybe two pods before the show, starts. And then I'll give you a couple in the afternoon, but, bro, and I get last night

was a weird situation because the Texans played until 1.30-ish, and then I just stayed up doing nothing until 3. And I went to the bar and drank beer last night to watch the Lions game. So it was a weird night. But I think I finally hit a point where I'm like, getting up at 3.45 is fucking dumb. I got to keep doing the podcast because the podcast makes me some coin, and I'm glad it makes me some coin. But holy shit, getting up at 3.45 is really stupid if you don't need to get up at 3.45. Back in Nashville, I did the same shift, 6 to 10 in the morning. I got up at like 515, sometimes 5.30 to do that. And I'm only nine minutes or eight minutes away from home at this station. So either way, I'm going to keep doing the pot, obviously, because it makes

me some money. I appreciate you guys and everybody that listens. But my God, the 345 thing has to stop. That is, like, that is not how I'm programmed. Like, I am a person who is wired. I am a night owl. I like to be up late. That's how I am. You can't be a night owl and get up at 3.45. It just like, and I feel, ugh, like, it sucks. It sucks. So maybe you'll be getting more midday pods.

The good news is some of you who listen in Houston, which many of you do, you listen in the central time zone, you'll still be getting these things around 9 or 10 o'clock. So it's kind of a midday thing for you, a lunchtime thing for you. People that listen in Philly are on the East Coast will be, you know, 10, 11 o'clock. So, look, I know that. that it's really, I'm being too wordy on this, but my God, I think last night was the moment I realized that I don't want to get up at 3.45 anymore because it's just like, it's like you don't live a life. I'm sure, and I'm sure some of you who listen do get up at 345.

And I like the idea of being up early, not before the fucking rooster. I don't want to be up before the rooster. So, and 345 is before the rooster. my god i've been seeing all these people speaking of this isn't a speaking of thing but just a random thing to go off on here and i got to talk about the texans in an episode i mean the lines i got a lot of stuff to get into but i see this awful is it awful announcing that i see their twitter yeah it's awful announcing and awful announcing as well as a bunch of other people have been bitching about commercials in sporting events right so last night apparently like in crunch time like with two outs left in the game there was a 15 second commercial during an app

bat during game seven of the NLCS. Admittedly, I watched none of the ALCS. I watched none of the ALCS. I was watching two football games. I was watching the first game at a bar. One TV in the bar did have the game on. It was a small dive bar. It wasn't like Hooters or something with a thousand TVs.

One of the TVs did have the game on, so I did happen to see the home run when Springer hit it. Also good for Springer. A nice guy, wonderful dude, legend from the Astros, coming through with a big hit because that's what he does in October. That's what all of these Astros guys do in October, by the way, is they just come up with big hits in October. When you look back on that roster and you think of top to bottom, the number of guys who no matter who they're playing for will just get big hits, it's bonkers. Correa, big hit guy.

Bregman, big hit guy. Altuve, big hit guy. George Springer, big hit guy. It is bananas what those guys have done. So Carlos Beltron, big hit postseason guy. They are just loaded with dudes that come through. through, obviously the Astros weren't in it this year, but still watching a guy like Springer come up in the eighth inning, do what he did, it takes you back to when the Astros

were kicking ass, 17, 18, 19, the height of the fun. God, it was great. But anyway, I don't really watch a lot of baseball anymore, as we've talked about, because once teams I root four out, I'm not going to sit around and devote three hours to watching a baseball game. I'll watch the big moments of a game, and last night there was obviously a big moment, and I saw it happen. But one of the things people are bitching about, or at least awful announcing is bitching about. is that there was a 15-second spot that aired in the middle of one of the last at-bats of the game. And I see people talking about how nothing is sacred and everybody's after the almighty dollar and do you have no shame?

Well, let me find the exact thing, because I actually quote tweeted it. So I want to make sure I got the exact thing that they said here. Let's see. Awful announcing. Let's see. Fox inexplicably cuts to an ad during the ninth inning of ALCS Game 7. It's not inexplicably. I can explain it for you pretty easily.

They pay a billion dollars to air these games. And they're never going to make that money back. It's already going to be a lost leader. So they're trying to find any way to make a couple of bucks to make it worth their while to air this baseball game, which will not even have more viewers than a random Monday night football game with the Lions in Tampa, okay? So the idea that they inexplicably cut from the ninth inning of the ALCS is absurd because it's explainable. It is explicable. It's the ninth inning.

The most eyeballs are on the game. It's like the equivalent of the two-minute warning in football. Like in the Super Bowl, you know which is the most valuable ad in the Super Bowl? The two-minute warning fourth quarter ad. Why? Because that's, in theory, when the most eyeballs are going to be on it. You will not see more eyeballs on a baseball game in the playoffs than the ninth inning of the game. People who didn't watch any of it but see something on social media and just flip over.

They hear people talking about it. They flip over. Of course it makes sense. It is totally explicable. There was nothing inexplicable about it. You sell premium ads and premium parts of the game. And oh, by the way, it was a split screen. Who cares?

I'm sorry that, you know, a Capital One ad popped up while you're watching the pitcher walk around the mound and get ready. It's a different world, man. This isn't 1987. There are score widgets on the screen. There are ads everywhere. There are ads on the jerseys. There are ads on the walls.

The stadiums are advertisements. So, like, this kind of holier than thou mindset of, oh, it's inexplicable. It really isn't. Let me see. What was some of the other comments on that? Oh, and they also like the bitch about how the red zone is adding more commercials. Like, sorry that because you thought you had the red zone and you get no 15 second commercials. My God, watch the games on TV every five minutes, every, and not even five minutes,

every two minutes there's a commercial. Two minute warning, touchdown, time out. kickoff time out so quit your bitching man like the reason why you have access to all of these games and i don't know how i'm becoming this person the quit your bitching guy but like the reason why you can watch every single game out there is because some network is paying a ridiculous amount of money to broadcast the games whether it be big 10 football on cbs whether it be the NFL on cbs or nbc or nbc or ABC or ESPN or Fox or wherever, whether it's college football playoff. These networks are paying a stupid sum of money.

Do I think there are too many commercials too frequently? Yes, that part of it sucks. It screws with the pacing of it. It sucks. I'm with you. But the idea that like, oh my God, how dare they put more commercials in the red zone instead of the commercial free? You know what?

Deal with it, man. Out of all the shit there is to bitch about, a couple of commercials in the red zone, Let me read this story and see how many commercials actually aired over the course of like 10 hours on Red Zone. Let's see. It appears to have played out with pro football talks, Michael David Smith, noting an increase in advertisements during Sunday's Week 7 Red Zone broadcast. Commercials were noticeably more frequent on today's Red Zone channel as the NFL has taken the product that fans could once turn on and enjoy it without nothing but football all day Sunday and turned it into a product that is riddled with commercial interruptions. How do you think it exists? like how like we talk about this on the podcast all the time i hate that i have to drop these ads

into the middle of the of each episode of this but you understand that they have to be there because that's the way i'm going to make money if i'm not going to make money there's no reason to do this if you're not going to make money there's no reason to broadcast these games you're not just carrying NFL games or the red zone or whatever it is because you know like it's out of the goodness of your heart you're doing it because you're trying to make a profit and it benefits your network in some way. Not directly, because again, there's no way you're ever going to make that money back on it, but it helps the overall image and everything else that goes around your network. But like these people that like shake their fingers and wag their fingers and hand ring over the fact that the red zone here's a couple more commercials.

My God. Smith was hardly the only person to notice an increase in the amount of commercials that were part of Sunday's broadcast. Although Red Zone initially touted only having four 15 seconds commercials when it opted to add commercials on a full-time basis at the start of this season, some on social media claimed to have seen no fewer than 10 ads during Sunday's broadcast. So let me ask you this. How long is the Sunday ticket or the Red Zone? How long is that on on a Sunday? If it starts at noon on a Sunday and goes until like 7 o'clock, that's 7 hours, you're going to have 7 hours of football and you have 10, 15.5. second commercials.

What is that, 150 seconds? What is that, like two and a half minutes of commercials or something like that? My God. And then all these people tweeting about it. Remember when NFL Red Zone had two commercials and they said that would be it? And people believed it. You people will bitch about anything. You have no clue how the world works.

You are stupid. I hate to break it to you. You are stupid. You have not you. You guys are smart. You listen to my podcast and I love you. the people that would tweet shit like, oh, I thought the NFL network was going to be commercial free.

How do you think these things survive without advertising that don't survive? But of course, like, what would you rather have to watch 10, 15 second commercials over seven hours or have no red zone? This person says NFL Red Zone went from two commercials the first week to at least eight 9 today. Hashtag noticing God, you're fucking dopes. Get over yourselves.

Red Zone has made ads permanent this year and it's hard to imagine that changing once ESPN takes over the operation as early as 2026. You really don't realize that football on television is not a right. I think people struggle to understand that that sports on television is not a right. Just like playing

in the NFL is not a right. These leagues can go away. They won't, but they could. Your franchises could go away. It's not the right of these franchises to exist and these leagues to exist. And it's not the right of the people to get to watch football on television. Like it is a business, just like radio is a business, podcasting is a business. Like do you live in this fairy tale world, like this Peter Pan Never Neverland world where people are like, hey, you know what, we should be able to watch football commercial free all day? Good. Then who's going to foot the bill for the billion?

of dollars these networks spend to carry the NFL? Do you think that just exists? Do you think that just exists? Like, poof, there's football on television. Do you know how things work? Like to be some dickhead that just sits on social media and bitches about this kind of stuff, like, oh, God forbid, there's a commercial on the red zone in between watching plays. Or God forbid, there's a 15-second commercial in the ninth inning of a baseball game. God forbid! How will we ever function? How will we ever survive?

What will we do? Like, dude, I work on radio. We play nine minutes of commercials a time. It's a fucking drag, and I'm with you. It sucks, but it's part of it. It's life. It sucks that I drop these ads in the middle of the pod. I get it.

But that's life. If you want certain things to continue, you have to make sacrifices on your own. Like, like, it's almost arrogant to believe that, like, I should just be entitled to commercial, free football on television. when CBS, ABC, ESPN are paying billions of dollars to air it. Like, I don't want to be inundated with it. I don't want to be beaten over the head. Like, I told you this.

But the worst is when there's a timeout, team comes back, scores, there's a kickoff and another timeout. Like, I don't need the 10 timeouts in a row. That sucks. Other than that, like deal with it. Sack up. Quit your bitching. It is not a right to watch these games on television.

It is not something that you are. It's not your birthright to do this. someone is paying a shitload of money to air these games for you to watch. So if they want to try to make a couple of bucks by airing a 15-second commercial during Red Zone, deal with it. If they want to air a 15-second commercial with two outs in the ninth inning of a baseball game, deal with it. Get over yourselves.