THE adverts between plays make watching American football via US TV a very different experience to Sky Sports’ coverage.

The adverts targeting the US audience are head-spinning: the fast-food ones make my mouth water, I become envious of the endless variety the US seems to offer compared with Britain.

One ad aired during the recent presidential election campaign caught my eye because it was aimed at sports fans — in particular supporters of the NFL franchise the Washington Redskins.

The ad hammered Hillary Clinton for daring to express her unease with the “Redskins” tag. It quoted a 2014 Clinton interview in which she said: “I think it’s insensitive and I think that there’s no reason for it to continue as the name of a team in our nation’s capital. I would love to see the owners think hard about what they could.”

Many find the “Redskins” tag a not-so-quaint relic of a bygone, racist age and while they want the name changed, there are plenty who think the name is fine. It was these people that Trump was aiming to stir up with his ad campaign — further proof that sport and politics mix.

Trump’s pitch was simple. “Yeah, you thought you were safe,” the voiceover says. “Sitting in your recliner in your man cave, cold beer and a bowl of chips. Ha, you thought you’d escaped politics by focusing on football.

“Wrong. Hillary Clinton wants to mess up your football, too. Hillary wants to change the name of the Redskins. Hillary’s priorities are not your priorities.”

Trump’s ad said a lot about the people he was targeting: the “good ol’ boy” who spends his Sundays ignoring the family, watching football, drinking beer.

Of course, on its own, the ad didn’t secure the votes needed to beat Clinton. But it will have added to the prejudices of a few: “Hillary is trying to change football, we can’t let her!”

I was waiting for sport’s reaction to a Trump win and it didn’t take long. Athletes are already protesting.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Mike Evans sat during the national anthem on Sunday and said he would continue this at games until “Ashton Kutcher comes out and says we’ve been Punk’d” — a reference to the Candid Camera-style show Kutcher used to present.

Evans added that “it’s not about the Republican P_arty or the Democratic Party or anything like that. It’s just who he [Trump] is. It’s well-documented what he’s done.”

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady stunned a lot of players and fans by being pictured with Trump and all but admitting that he was a supporter of the reality TV star-turned-candidate.

What stunned people even more was when Trump read out a letter of support he had received from Patriots head coach Bill Belichick the night before the election.

The next morning, when Brady and Belichick walked into the locker room, they were met by silence, apparently.

Teammates didn’t know how to react to the news that the two leaders of the team were backing a man endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.

Some, of course, were conscious that, on entering the White House, Trump’s policies would harm friends and family; perhaps others voted for Trump — but they certainly knew that telling their teammates wouldn’t be a good idea.

I find it odd that, if you have the conviction to vote a politician into office, you would be afraid to tell people — if you are worried about how people will view you if they knew, it says a lot about the person you are standing behind.

That Brady and Belichick have been given a free pass by the media while Evans’s stance has already seen him take a verbal kicking isn’t surprising, given the amount of abuse San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has received over the past few months.

Kaepernick admitted that he didn’t vote for any of the candidates as it would be “hypocritical of me to vote.

“I said from the beginning I was against oppression. I was against the system of oppression. I’m not going to show support for that system. And to me, the oppressor isn’t going to allow you to vote your way out of oppression.”

American footballers aren’t the only sportspeople to voice their disapproval. Formula One driver Sergio Perez dropped one of his sponsors after its crass tweet that Mexicans should buy a pair of sunglasses to hide their tears when Trump’s border wall is constructed.

Perez responded by saying: “What a bad comment, today I end my relationship with @HawkersMX. I won’t let anyone make fun of my country! #MexicoUnited.”

But the most powerful response came in football, or soccer, as they would have it over there. On Friday the United States met Mexico in a World Cup qualifier at Columbus, Ohio. Before the match the 22 players stood together, shoulder to shoulder, in a sign of solidarity against Trump’s anti-immigrant blasts.

For that moment they were united and once again showed the world that sport will have a say in politics.