It’s widely known that Americans don’t enjoy football. Well, I suppose they have their version of “football,” which consists of extremely large, steroid-addled men running into each other as fast as possible and doesn’t seem to involve the “foot” at all. But real football never caught on in the US (or as I call it, the THEM), apparently because Americans find it “boring.”

Well, I’m no advertising executive (if I was, I’d do us all a favor and drown myself), but it seems to me the best way to market football would be to make it seem less boring. For instance, under no circumstances would I associate soccer with Coldplay’s music. But that’s exactly what ESPN is doing.

I suppose the idea is Americans have terrible taste—the number one single is by Rihanna, for Christ’s sake—and if you want them to enjoy a sport that actually involves continuous action and athletic skill, you have to package it with the blandest, most boring group to come out of the UK since the puritans.

Still, I couldn’t figure out why a band would sell out so blatantly, especially when they can get all the money they want by ripping off “The Bends” over and over. So I called up Coldplay’s frontman, Chris Martin, and asked him why he was whoring himself out to the world-devouring Disney corporation.

“You’re betraying your fans,” I told him. “Well, your fan."

“What was that?” he said. “I couldn’t hear you, sorry. I’m frying up some hundred-pound notes for dinner, and they’re making quite a bit of noise. Why don’t you come over to my house in Italy, Thom? We can take a bath in my Champaign fountain and hunt Dodo on my grounds.”

I didn’t take him up on his offer, of course. Flying over there would leave a ghastly carbon footprint, and if I want to hunt Dodo, I can always go over to Phil’s place.