February 4, 2013 The Big Game
First off, I want to join the chorus of those who feel copyrighting “Super Bowl” is ridiculous. I guarantee you I am not making any money off the phrase.
Now, I am not much of a sports guy. I watch the occasional football game, don’t like to watch baseball or basketball at all, and don’t ever think about watching hockey or soccer. I’m sure I’m forgetting other sports, but only because I don’t watch them, either. That said, I, like many others, like to watch the Super Bowl, even when I don’t care two licks about either team. Why? Let’s go to the list!
- The spectacle fascinates me. There is an awful lot of effort that goes into this thing. I’m not one of those “if we spent all those resources on an actual problem we could end it!” guys, but it’s hard to ignore just how much goes into it.
- The commercials. Yes, I’m one of those people. I’m even going to take it a step further: if you’ve bought ad space during the Super Bowl, I feel you should be required by law to make it funny, and I’m a guy who thinks there are too many laws already – that’s how strongly I feel about this. Special exemptions will be given to two companies – one per half – for a heart-tugging or inspirational message (yay, farmers!), but everyone else has to be funny. Worst crime in Super Bowl advertisements is being boring. Knock that off, companies.
- The actual game. By this point, even if one of the teams has squeaked their way in somehow, the two teams are pretty decent, if not outright great. Even if your team didn’t make it, you’re still usually going to see some pretty good football. Kickoff run back for a touchdown? That’s cool anytime (unless it’s against your team, I guess).
- The shared cultural experience. Last year’s Super Bowl audience was around 111.3 million people. In the grand scheme of there being 6 billion people on the planet, that isn’t that many, but in terms of how many people I see in an actual week, that’s a huge amount. The odds of me talking to someone today about something that happened during the game and having them know exactly what I am talking about are pretty high. Those moments are few and far between today. People watch TV shows and movies when they want rather than all having to catch it at the same time. Twitter has expanded this experience even more, as you can choose to follow the game on TV and online and have several different types of shared experience all at the same time. I think that’s incredible.
Every year while the Super Bowl is gearing up or actually on, there’s another vocal “sports is dumb I don’t watch it” group. To them I say “whatevs.” I don’t watch American Idol, and I’m pretty proud of myself for that, but trumpeting it doesn’t make much sense to me. If someone asks, I’ll tell them, but I don’t brag about it. If you don’t like something, don’t follow it. Seems pretty easy to me.
Two last thoughts. One, I found this video via 22 Words, and I thought it was fascinating:
Two, my favorite moment of the night was the look on a friend’s face when I spoiled the ending of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood for him. In my defense, that game came out over two years ago, but I still kind of felt bad about it, but the look on his face was absolutely priceless. I wish I had a picture of it.
Tags: Assassin's Creed, sports
Written by: Mark
- 5 comments
- Posted under TV
Permalink # bd said
>there’s another vocal “sports is dumb I don’t watch it” group. To them I say “whatevs.”
Word word word word word
Permalink # Michael said
I think it is mainly that those who don’t participate in the enthusiasm would rather it didn’t bleed into their lives when they aren’t seeking it out. I don’t really post too many antagonistic sports things, but I pretty much declare Twitter bankruptcy anytime a major sporting event happens.
Permalink # Mark said
Honestly, I can understand that to a certain degree – some of the people I follow on Twitter are ALL BASEBALL ALL THE TIME, and with 100-and-some games in just the regular season alone, it gets old really quickly.
Permalink # Kirk Fatool said
I don’t get the appeal of the farmers commercial.
Permalink # Mark said
I think it has the same appeal as the Clint Eastwood and Eminem commercials from previous years – it speaks to something deep in the heart of many Americans. I grew up around farmers and my parents grew up on farms, so it’s probably going to speak to me more than it would to someone who grew up in, say, New York City.