Without the generous support and financial contributions of many businesses involved with Dayton Flyer basketball, the program wouldn’t get off the ground. From advertising to promotions to media coverage, they help make UD basketball a commodity we all enjoy spending the winter months cheering for. But corporatism can ruin the game, not in terms of rebounds and screens, but intangibles like the fun factor, spirit, momentum, and tradition. The 1999-00 season has given us great basketball in Flyerland, but businesses are ruining the UD Arena experience by raping us of the intangibles that make an ordinary game an extraordinary evening.

It wasn’t too long ago that donations on the private and corporate level were handled internally, but now there isn’t a dime of philanthropy willing to be donated unless a product or service can be solicited in return for the green stuff. It’s gotten so bad that the UD Arena has become a virtual flea market of salesmen in plaid jackets and horn-rimmed glasses trying to lure our disposable income through hokey promotions and nagging announcements on the public address system. What used to be a ticket that got you into a basketball game is now a one-way bus pass on the Sales Pitch Highway. Like an incessant telemarketer, the el-cheapo come-ons and vacuous sales jobs of the corporate promotions at Flyer basketball games have pushed the game itself to second-class status while the paying customers are forced to strap themselves into their chairs and put up with free-market nonsense. Among the businesses guilty of whoring our basketball time is Papa John’s, the pizza chain that comes out during the first full timeout to pass around a couple of pizzas and Cokes among the 11,000 fans.

The gag of the promotion is that the pizzas go to the loudest section of the Arena, but anyone with a grain of salt in their shaker knows a couple pizzas couldn’t feed an entire section, let alone a single row at the UD Arena. An average pizza is only $10, so the pizza chain’s out-of-pocket expenses for the promotion are extremely minimal, but one only wonders how much they donate to the University of Dayton to have PA Announcer Charlie Robinson extol the virtues of Papa John’s and their pizza pies. Little do they realize that pizza is basically pizza and that most folks buy it according to whatever coupon they can dig up. In short, brand loyalty among the pizza-buying public isn’t exactly on the top of our list of priorities.

Among the other halftime prostitutes are the Ikon Office Solutions halftime stats that get passed around. By the time most of us get a copy however, the first half has either started or Charlie Robinson has announced them over the PA during one of the few moments where he can talk hoops. Another promo is the Acme Widget Works Super Shooter Flyer Fan’s Something Something Something. This is where a couple fans that have never laced up the sneaks in their life try to make a lay-up, free throw, and three-pointer without breaking anything or hurting themselves. Look around your section the next time you are at a Flyer game. The ones who complain the most about the Flyers are usually the ones who take the court and build an outhouse in one of these boring promos.

It’s always nice as well to see a Flyer free-throw shooter take aim at the charity stripe while staring into a hatworld.com advertisement on the padding that supports the baskets. Why not at least substitute it for efollett.com and help everyone save a few bucks on textbooks? Naming rights are also on the up-and-up. In a couple years, expect the UD Arena to be renamed the Dyer, Garafalo, Mann, & Schultz Coliseum. The UD cheerleaders will have advertisements for Pep Boys and Iams dog food on rear of their skirts — don’t bet against dancing spark plugs and talking Rottweilers.Every timeout will consist of an infomercial consisting of Ginsu knives, Pocket Fishermen, Shiwalas, and Tap Lights.

Once was an era when timeouts and halftimes were cues to bring out the cheerleaders and help the crowd get excited about the ballgame, but Flyer fans hardly even see them anymore because stoppages in play now mean a chance to sell us something we don’t need, already have, or wish we never bought in the first place. Many traditional cheers and cheerleading routines have gone the way of the dinosaurs – not because they’ve been forgotten, but because there’s no more time to showcase them.

Make no mistake, the men and women who crunch numbers for these companies and psychoanalyze the benefits of advertising inside the UD Arena know what they are doing. Some of us will actually go home and order a Papa John’s Pizza, buy a Fudgypucker 2000, or buy auto insurance at www.crazybobs.com. In the end, maybe it’s the ticketholder who deserves the blame. Maybe we have met the enemy and he is us. Blame aside, this isn’t what a night of basketball is supposed to be. At the top of the guilty list are the decisionmakers inside the athletic department who feel it necessary to put the almighty dollar ahead of the game. The games are becoming less fun because of it, and it’s a shame. If the university needs to raise money, there are better – more professional – ways of doing it. If it’s not about money and all about entertainment, then UD brass hats are completely out of touch with the Flyer Faithful.

At a time when the Flyer basketball team is finally flexing some hoops muscle, mass solicitation has watered down what could have been a much better experience. I believe these companies have their hearts in the right places, but we’re begging you to leave your business at the front door so we can relax and enjoy some hoops — not an auction. You wouldn’t want us discussing zone defenses on company time, so please don’t solicit us to no end on our basketball time. Fans aren’t asking to get rid of corporate sponorships altogether, that would be a mistake. Sometimes less is more however. We’re asking for less, so we can have more — fun that is.