DICK'S SPORTING GOODS

By Evan Richards

            Dick’s Sporting Goods has a longstanding array of narrative-focused commercials that all utilize the language of myth. I have selected two commercials that exemplify this process. Mythology is evident in the key moments of these commercials, and due to the aggressive and fine-tuned use of mythic imagery, these moments constitute the commercials in their near-entirety. Though the myths specific to each commercial vary, the commercials as complete forms function as similar mythologies that encourage consumers to buy their products.

            The first commercial, titled “The Hoop,” centers around a free-standing basketball hoop. The hoop is first shown on front of a snow-dusted, two-story suburban home that is decorated with wreathes and Christmas lights. A reverb-heavy Christmas tune plays, but is soon replaced by an acoustic guitar number. A father leads his young daughter outside, where he presents the hoop as a gift, and the two embrace after he assists her in making a basket. In a series of shots, the daughter aging considerably in each, we are presented with the hoop standing in a cul-de-sac of similar houses full of children playing and riding bicycles. We see many neighbors gathered around the hoop on the 4^th of July, complete with tables, chairs, canopies, etc. The backboard of the hoop reflects the fireworks (the angle is towards the basket), and the hoop itself stands centered in two lines of patriotic-colored banners, the support to which these decorations are tied. The hoop is covered in thrown toilet-paper rolls to giggling of children. The hoop is battered with rain in a thunderstorm.  The father and the daughter play basketball together, and in the next cut the father watches the daughter play basketball with a similarly aged boy. Finally, the daughter bids farewell to her parents, drives a heavily packed sedan down the street and off, presumably, to college, and in the final shot the father shoots a basket alone. Super-imposed text encourages us to “give a gift that matters,” and the commercial ends with the typical sign off: the word “every” appears, followed in sequence by the words, “neighborhood, family, gift, legacy, and season,” the last becoming the phrase, “every season starts at Dick’s.”

            Clearly, the largest myth present in this commercial concerns the relationship between a father and a daughter. This myth, and the smaller myths beneath it, almost all utilize the basketball hoop as its signifier. The commercial mimics life and parenthood, utilizing the basketball hope to evoke several signified notions: the hoop is a hub of community and friendship amongst neighborhood kids, the hoop is a conduit of mischief and life’s high points in the shot with the toilet paper, and the hoop in the rainstorm is evocative of the low points, and so on. In the 4^th of July shot, with the backboard reflecting the glow of fireworks and supporting the lines of red, white, and blue pennants, the hoop is analogous to the American flag itself. When the father first plays basketball with the then-teenage daughter but then watches her play basketball with a boy her own age, the signified, conventional/conservative concept of a father being the first man in a woman’s life who hands her off to her future spouse, is abundantly clear. The short duration of these shots barely prevents the myth from becoming too explicit. In the final two shots, the daughter has been successively raised, and the father pays homage to the hoop, which in a quite real sense is more the daughter’s second parent than her own mother. The commercial’s high-saturated, slightly grainy home video feel combined is highly nostalgic, and it is purported in the commercial that the successful raising of the daughter substituted sports and athleticism in place of more conventional feminine hobbies or past-times. Thus the myths in this commercial effectively appropriates conservative notions of fatherhood, growing-up, patriotism, and gender, and speaks most clearly to young or soon-to-be parents who were raised amidst these environments. Overall, the myth is made from the basketball hoop, the signifier, and the process of a father raising a daughter, the signified.

            The second commercial, titled “Who Will You Be?” features a more diverse cast of characters and a voice-over narration. A young boy looks up in awe at an immense, mirrored trophy case in a high school. We see several young men and women practicing golf, lacrosse, soccer, weightlifting, etc., most of which are alone, many at night. A young man in a full baseball uniform hits several balls tossed by his coach, the camera positioning him directly in front of the diamond’s empty stands. Meanwhile, a gruff, masculine narrator tells us that so-called true tests “won’t come easy,” “won’t last long,” but that “that is why [we’re] here.” He then reiterates “for these very moments,” as we are presented with a young football player in a red, white, and blue uniform, standing mid-game in heavy rain in front of packed stands. The soccer player, hockey star, and fellow athletes are each shown in-game, often leading a pack of charging players, and nearly every character shown practicing is allowed a brief moment of performative glory. The narrator asks, “Who will you be?” as we see the same text super-imposed over the boy from the opening shot’s wide-eyed face. The commercial signs off in the same manner as previous, this time with the sequence of words “Choice, Lesson, Athlete, Season.”

            In comparison to the pervious commercial, “Who Will You Be?” entails a more complex array of signifiers in its umbrella of myths. The common signified notions in this commercial are centered on the individual, as opposed to a sense of community or on a familial relationship. In each shot of a young man or woman practicing, the isolation, darkness, repetition all evoke not only the value of individual perseverance but the prototypically American notion of self-made success against all odds. The shots of the empty stands and the timbre of the narration suggest vindictiveness. The footage itself appears less like a home video and more like a dramatic film. The football player dressed in red, white, and blue football regalia, complete with stars and a mustang on his helmet, is the rain-defying, pseudo-military hero that American culture idolizes. The narration prompts us to think of life as a series of escalating achievements in sports (the athletes shown certainly do), and when it asks both us and the little boy who we will be, we understand that to work hard and become a star athlete is to be a success, and to not arrive at these pinnacle moments is to be a failure. The common signifiers are diligent practice, athletic success in various forms, and the trophies/trappings of victory. The signified, therefore, is something akin to persistent, individual, physical work, despite odds and the sacrifices required, allows one to achieve the kind of greatness that matters, namely glory on the modern equivalents of the gladiatorial field of battle.

            Ultimately, both commercials hold several myths in common and in doing so achieve the intended purpose of alluring shoppers. The idea that investing in sports and sports equipment is fundamental to being an American is manifest in both commercials. Furthermore, the idea that one’s involvement in sports determines their success as a social individual is common ground. The two series of words are direct statements of the franchise’s intent: “neighborhood, family, gift, legacy, season,” and “choice, lesson, athlete, season,” are all identified in plain text as “starting at Dick’s.” The mythology of Dick’s purports that, to be a successful American, father, or individual, one must not only engage in the realm of sports, but must do so correctly by investing in their products from the very beginning.