There’s currently a commercial on Norwegian television for a newspaper with a big sports section where two stereotypical husbands are left alone with each other by their wives who are friends. The two men are awkwardly staring at each other until their phones ding with the newspaper’s app and they bond over both being Tottenham fans. Their entire conversation in the ad is “Tottenham? Tottenham! Tottenham!”
Apart from the annoying stereotype of men being emotional wrecks only able to bond over sports, this ad annoys me every time I think how much the English premier league (one of the weaker ones in Europe) is profiting solely from the fact that it is broadcast in a language everybody understands.
These are two Norwegians invested emotionally into the local team of a minor London borough that they otherwise wouldn’t ever have heard of. (It’s not even a borough anymore, Wikipedia tells me). It’s as if I built my personality around a team in Siena’s Palio!
