I'm a European but I watch NFL on USA Channels via a VPN.
I have to mute the commercials now as it's:
Junk Food, Junk Food, Health Insurance, Gambling Ad, Life Insurance, Political Ad, Alcohol, Weight Loss Pills, Gambling Ad, Anti Depression Pills, Alcohol, Junk Food, Car Insurance, New TV Show, Gambling Ad
In the UK we don't have political ads year round. In fact they're outright banned. During elections the parties are allowed a VERY limited amount of time on the BBC but that's it. It's classed as a Party political broadcast (PPB) Which are allocated airtime like TV shows. Unless you try and find one, you won't.
Gambling ads are usually for online bingo. They've been getting more lax over the last decade but they're not to the same extent as the American fanduel adverts. They're not allowed celebrity endorsement and they can't have anyone that looks under 25. They are also limited with the amount of adverts allowed during sporting events.
You can't advertise prescription drugs at all. The worst we have is over the counter heartburn medication.
high sugar fast food can't be advertised between 5:30AM and 9:00PM. Companies can still run brand awareness adverts, such as McDonald's charity adverts, or McDonald's career adverts.
It's mainly kids snacks, TV shows, and cleaning products.
Prescription drug adverts are wild that they are allowed. Shouldn’t be consumer choice. Leave it to the doctors discretion on which kickbacks they want to receive.
I have a theory that the inundating of medical problems and side effects will have lasting psychological if not physical implications. It would be really interesting to do a study on the difference between populations that were constantly subjected to these ads vs. populations that weren't.
Strangely there is no correlation. In 2025 America had 20.5 drug related deaths per 100,000 people. Scotland had 33 per 100,000. Norway, Ireland, and Sweden are also higher than America's.
I'm not sure if this is because of the way the coroners of those countries attribute drugs as a cause of death in those countries or if it is as black and white as the stats say.
One thing is clear though, American statistics can't be trusted. Just like everything else American, they're probably corrupted.
I agree with y our points but I wasn't referring to drug related deaths. I'm more interested in the manifestation of medical issues through subliminal conditioning over time. You'd need to do a study in 20-30 years and compare the general medical statistics... but again you run into an issue with the verity of the stats and take into account the American healthcare systems failures.
My hypothesis is that it's similar to Munchausen syndrome by proxy. The constant repetition and conditioning of medical issues, symptoms, and side effects could introduce psychological issues and dependencies. I guess we'll see. For now I do everything in my power to combat or avoid ads altogether.
really the most important thing to mention is how many ads there are. In a sports game you'll have pre game bullshit from talking heads, then some ads right before the game, then zero ads for the entire first half no matter how much extra time, no matter how long play is delayed for injury or decisions.
Then half time you'll get like 3 mins ads then back to talking heads doing highlights for 10 minutes, 3 mins ads then back to second half, then no ads till after the game is over.
American sports, time out called after 3 minutes, ad. Injury after 5 minutes, ad, video review called, ad, turnover, ad, touchdown, and extra point play, ad, half time ad ad ad ad ad.
It's unbearable watching streams of american sports. Funnily enough if the US sport is on a uk broadcast when they go to ads the uk broadcast will go to a studio where they talk about the game instead most of the time. INdycar is crazy because they'll be racing and do a fucking ad while uk goes to uk commentary team before cutting back to us broadcast when it's back from ads. Absolute shambles that US sports is.
I can't watch sports on TV anymore. The ads are offensive and boring. A difficult combination. Throw them on every 30 seconds and it's unwatchable.
I'll go to a stadium and watch a game live. I'll record a game and skip the commercials. I'll go watch the 60 minute no-pause recap of football games. I just can't deal with the commercials anymore.
i mostly watch sport from the uk so ads are effectively non existent in terms of if you turn in at the start of it and turn off at half time, or for F1 after the race has finished you won't even see any.
I got into nba and nfl a bit at various times and again UK coverage is pretty good in that they switch to a uk commentary team to discuss the game rather than ads most of the time. But trying to watch more games using US streams was just cancer.
The US has a long history of "gambling is illegal and bad except for this long list of exceptions". The biggest irony is state lotteries, but we also have numerous casinos where the local government likes them. (Usually native reservations or Vegas)
Recently it was decided that sports betting is a skill based thing and therefor completely fine and has exploded in popularity. Its also why fanduel is advertising like crazy trying to get as many suckers as possible.
Our advertising rules have always been very pro capitalist, the one area we seem to actually be regulating them is tobacco products cannot be advertised to children. (Includes being visible behind counters)
Wow that sounds amazing. I havent watched tv consistently approaching 15 years and it was still all the same thing in the comment above. …yknow, im just realizing how prevalent boner pill ads were wtf. Just “cant get ya dick hard” all day everyday
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u/MacheteBrizz 2d ago
I'm a European but I watch NFL on USA Channels via a VPN.
I have to mute the commercials now as it's:
Junk Food, Junk Food, Health Insurance, Gambling Ad, Life Insurance, Political Ad, Alcohol, Weight Loss Pills, Gambling Ad, Anti Depression Pills, Alcohol, Junk Food, Car Insurance, New TV Show, Gambling Ad