Now the largest domain-name registrar in the world, in early 2005 Godaddy sought to boost its market share with several strategically placed SuperBowl 2005 ads. One of these ran; the NFL and ABC cancelled the second slot. You can read about the flap here.

The ad presented a scenario in which the breasts of a large-busted Godaddy spokesperson testifying before a senate committee kept slipping out of her skimpy top. Both the ad and the censorship thereof received a lot of buzz and media coverage, all of it to Godaddy's financial benefit.

Godaddy prez Bob Parsons brags in his blog, "Hot Points," that Godaddy -- appropriately, in my opinion -- received handsome compensation for this breach of contract. However, he's also begun posturing as a free-speech champion. Larry Flynt he's not. Most recently, he's calling for the SuperBowl to be declared an "adult-level" event, which would presumably entitle his company, and any other, to use it as an environment in which to present "adult-oriented" sales pitches. (Click here for his proposal.) Given the specific setting of the SuperBowl, this would mean inevitably that they'd all vie to out-"adult" each other in terms of sexual content.

I find this argument so contorted that I felt impelled to respond, and posted the following to his blog on July 27, 2005.

Bob Parsons, President
Godaddy.com

Dear Bob:

I find your editorial proposing that the SuperBowl become "an adult-level entertainment" poorly reasoned and unconvincing.

I say this as someone who authors an online journal about adult sexuality published by The Nearby Café (nearbycafe.com), for which Godaddy serves as domain host. You can reach my section of the Café by going to Plunce. com.

As I noted in my commentary therein on the flap over SuperBowl '04 (see the Plunce entries for February 4-6, 2004), I'm no prude, and would have no objection to the display of Janet Jackson's nip -- or, for that matter, your SuperBowl '05 ad -- on a show that aired after 9 p.m.

However, regardless of the ads and the half-time extravaganza, the SuperBowl remains the season finale of the U.S. football season. Of the many millions of football fans in the U.S. and elsewhere, surely a few million are minors. The sales of football cards and posters, kids' football gear, biographies of major players for kids, and kid-sized team-logoized caps, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc., surely testifies to that.

Football itself, as a participatory sport and a spectator sport, is heavily marketed to kids in the U.S. Take the trouble to read the stats and you'll learn that several billion dollars annually go into pushing involvement with football to kids. Certainly kids comprise a significant portion of the population that watches all televised football games.

So not only do millions of adults watch the SuperBowl to see the game, but many, many kids do the same. (Many kids also attend the game in person.) It takes place on Sunday afternoon, in prime family-programming time. Unlike Las Vegas, to which you analogize most unpersuasively, the SuperBowl cannot simply declare itself an adult-oriented context. Nor does it make sense for regulations about adult content to get lifted for one privileged channel on one particular day for one particular show.

So, realistically, there's no way to somehow segregate the SuperBowl from the entire remainder of the football season and U.S. football culture, give ABC special dispensation to make this chunk of Sunday prime time into an "adult-oriented" stretch, and send everyone under the age of 18 off to another room to watch "The Lion King" or "The Little Mermaid," as you recommend.

And the fact that you want all this done so that you can indulge Godaddy's desire to air titillating SuperBowl commercials centered entirely around big boobs makes you seem like one yourself.

I will defend your right to make dumb, adolescent, sexist ads and broadcast them at appropriate hours. But your ads are not innovative or cutting-edge in either style or content. Compared to a benchmark SuperBowl ad -- such as Apple's classic "Big Brother" ad -- all of your ads are cliché-ridden trivia, using sex to sell domain-name registrations. You have the legal right to do that, but let's not pretend that this is in any way progressive or pioneering, or that you're fighting some heroic battle.

Yours,
Don Riemer

To their credit, Godaddy did post this critique, as written. Here's Parsons' reply, in its entirety:

Dear Don,

Actually I wasn't talking about sending anyone under 18 away to a different room when the SB is on the air. I would hope that it would never progress to that level of adult entertainment. What I would like to see is for it to return to the way it was during 2004 minus the Janet Jackson antics.

That year the SB ads were the very best ever and were hilarious. There really wasn't any of the content that was inappropriate for anyone. The reason that there is a separate TV for children during SuperBowl parties has nothing to do with censorship. It's because by and large most young kids don't find the game interesting -- if they are intent upon watching TV they would much rather watch something else.

Appreciate your post,

Bob

Not exactly responsive to the issues raised . . .