Wilson Advertisement

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       The Wilson athletics advertisement promises the viewer that he/she will have complete control over the soccer ball if you purchase their new soccer cleats.  In the game of soccer controlling the ball is the most important skill required because connecting passes to teammates and shooting scoring goals is what wins you matches.  The only words used in the advertisement are the website in which you can find the cleats.  Other than that, the ad shows a soccer ball and a remote control on a soccer field.  This shows the reader that they have the opportunity to have complete control over the ball as if it were a remote controlled ball, controlling its every movement.  The idea is impossible; however Wilson attracts the reader with its possibilities of getting close to that kind of power. 

       The desire the advertisement is appealing to is the need to excel in your sport you play in.  In this particular case it would soccer.  The advertisement does this by showing the reader you can acquire these skills with the purchase of this cleat.  The ad is very plain and simple and cuts to the point.  I believe the creators of the ad did not provide any texts to allow the reader to focus on the main point without any distractions.  It makes it easy for the reader to deduce that this is what the creator is getting at. 

       The audience Wilson is targeting is anyone who plays soccer and is in the market for buying new cleats.  It may attract customers who are more serious about the sport and ones that are looking to improve their game that much more than their opponents.  The ad claims the consumer will acquire technologically advanced skills and will be able to handle the ball with much more precision and accuracy than those who don’t have the cleat. 

Is baseball considered a sport or just a game?

One of the more common argumentative subjects found within my group of friends revolve around sports.  It is very easy to argue about sports because there are so many things that are included inside it.  Arguments always include which team, sport or athlete is better.  However one of the more hysterical battles we had involved questioning baseball’s title as a sport or just a game.  This was concluded mainly through analyzing different parts of the “game” to other “sports” such as football, rugby and even soccer.  I personally sat out this argument and let my friends duke it out because I am currently on the fence about the matter.  We did have friends who absolutely love the game so we were able to have a good argument.

Claims

-  baseball is full of leisurely play, people of all shapes and sizes can play, it is not physically demanding, no athletic skill required

-  baseball requires a lot of strategy, extremely difficult to make it to the big leagues, lots of competition within playing time, hitting a 90 mph fastball is one of the hardest things to do, the pressure of high stake situations

Evidence

-  Since there are 162 games in a regular season, players don’t have to hustle every game, each game means less, allows room for error.  Just by watching a game mid season you can see the lack of hustle (i.e running to first base). 

-  Also by watching you can observe that people of all shapes and sizes can play (i.e David Eckstein, San Diego Padres; Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco Giants.) 

-  The World Series is won by winning best of seven games.  Whereas other sports have one championship game in which there is no room for error. 

-  baseball players are constantly being moved around the minor leagues and moving from AAA to major leagues and vice versa.  There are tons of people in farm leagues, triple A, so the competition is for playing time or even a spot on the team is always present

-  pitchers throw the ball so fast that if the batter blinks, the human eye can’t even register that a ball has been pitched.  In other words a baseball can be thrown faster than a blinking eye

-  baseball fielder are constantly shifting in the field to take advantage of any situation 

-  imagine the pressure of game seven of the world series, in your home stadium, bases loaded, down by 3 runs, bottom of the 9^th,  3 balls, 2 strikes, 2 outs.     

Assumptions:

-  short or fat people can’t be athletic

-  sports require fast paced, full contact, athletic players

Strengths/Weaknesses

-  the whole argument that  baseball is not a sport was entirely based off of opinion and no credible sources.  They tried to turn the argument in to a football vs baseball argument.  Although using the comparison to other sports in a good strategy.

-  since there were people involved in the argument that played in high school and follow baseball very closely, they seemed to have more solid evidence and were able to counter very well.  In other words it was their personal experience that was their strength