I guess we can chalk this one up to news of the weird: the Seattle Seahawks (among other NFL teams) are instituting a program this season whereby fans who attend their games at Qwest Field can rent a “Kangaroo TV” to watch other football games on DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket. In theory the concept sounds cool; how often have you been at a sporting event and wondered what else was going on around the league? But I wonder how the offering will actually end up in practice.
On the one hand, people who rent the TVs for $24.95 per game or $79.95 per season will definitely show others in attendance their level of NFL fanaticism, and you just know everyone around them will be either asking for score updates or tuning into the mini-screen itself. But on the other hand, by tuning into other games on the miniature screen, will they be tuning out on the full entertainment experience that is an NFL game?
Many Super Bowls ago, MTV launched its anti-halftime 
crusade with an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch. I, along with all my college roommates at the time, skipped the network’s halftime show to watch some claymation violence. When the show was over, we switched back to the Super Bowl. With the Kangaroo TVs, the Seahawks are essentially asking, begging and enticing people to do just the same thing — from the very stadium where the game is being played.
Before you say this isn’t a big deal, think about everything that goes into the sensory overload of an NFL game. The halftime shows. The in-arena advertising. The sponsored giveaways, promotions and instant replays. Most fans pay attention to these things because they’re a captive audience. But what if, now that he or she has a Kangaroo TV, that same fan ignores the sponsored halftime show, tunes out advertisers messages and tunes in to a competitor’s ad on DirecTV?
The irony of it all would be that the Seahawks encouraged them to do it. In the short term this is probably a nice revenue generator for the Seahawks, DirecTV and the Kangaroo TV manufacturers. But in the long term, every in-stadium advertiser and Seahawks sponsor may actually be discouraged at the “cute little promotion,” because the lack of consumer attention is diluting the chance of their messaging getting through to consumers.
I’m sure the Seahawks’ bean counters have thought of this, and ideally they’ve found a way for Qwest Field’s sponsors to get in on the Kangaroo TV advertising action. I also presume they’ve instituted some fail safes for if and when the halftime performers are suddenly less interested in doing their show in front of a crowd that’s only half aware of the performers’ presence. But, if advertisers suddenly find themselves questioning their investment in the team and stadium, the Seahawks will really have no one to blame but themselves. Well, and maybe DirecTV, which stands to make out like the one bandit in this entire venture.
— Jonas Allen
