Commercial interruption: captive audience gets an unending earful.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: Sports biz

WE'RE IN THE FOURTH QUARTER OF THE BRONCOS Oct. 31 home game against Atlanta when a time-honored ritual goes awry.

Beginning in the Invesco Field south stands and carrying to the north end zone, an ancient war cry is stirring. "Go!" shout the south stand faithful. "Broncos!" answer their northern neighbors. Veteran game-goers know this drill by heart. Normally, the chant builds in volume and intensity until people at both ends of the field are roused to near-delirium.

Yet today the ritual fizzles after two feeble attempts. Not because the crowd isn't into it, but because it's drowned out by the roar of an even more impressive noise.

A TV commercial.

"We gotta protect this house!" screams a voice over the loud-speakers. A loud gnash of heavy-metal music thunders from the sky. The guy next to me suddenly can't hear his wife.

The "Protect this house!" message, perhaps provided as a public service for fans who may have been unaware of the competitive value of a good home-field defense, is provided by Under Armour Performance Apparel. UA, as it likes to be called, makes highly rugged sports equipment. Like socks.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

We return to the game. But only briefly. Remember that an average play lasts for only a few violent seconds. That leaves at least 40 ticks before the next snap of the ball. And that means there's plenty of time for ...

Loud music and commercials!

At Invesco, both are prolific. The stadium is a visual and sonic parade of sponsored messages, TV commercials, Beastie Boys and ZZ Top songs, video clips, blinking neon logos, hanging wall posters mounted over men's-room urinals and, the epicenter of the whole affair, a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision screen that towers over the stands.

There is a sponsor for the first-half high-lights reel (Ameriquest Mortgage), a sponsor for the second-half kickoff (DSW), sponsors for the building itself (Budweiser, Channel 4, Comcast, United Airlines, Waste Management, HealthOne, Qwest, The Denver Post, Trice Jewelers, Coca-Cola, Invesco, US Bank and Verizon Wireless) and even sponsors (Coca-Cola and Target) for the kid who trots onto the field to fetch the kicking tee.

The impact of this sensory assault is to transport the fan into a sort of electronic netherworld where it's easy to be distracted from the game at hand. If you haven't happened upon a game lately, here's a cursory summary of what you missed during a...