There’s a reason I won’t be watching the Super Bowl this Sunday, and it’s only in part because the Bucs, for the XIth consecutive year, won’t be in it. And it’s only in part because there are still a couple of pre-Oscar movies I want to see, and a Sunday with thinned-out traffic is enticing.
The overriding reason is this: The Super Bowl is more over-the-top, show-biz spectacle–and mid-winter, party excuse–than football game. Network cameras are under obvious orders to follow the antics after the action so that not a single preening, strutting, smack-talking swagger-head is ignored.
It probably annoys Peyton Manning too, but nobody would dare ask. Least of all the personality- shtick crowd of talking heads too busy with their clichéd references to winning “the battle in the trenches” and “making the fewest turnovers.” Oh, and “special teams could be the big difference maker.”
Also, America’s No. 1 sporting event, for all of its Roman-numeraled pretension, TV-ad debuts and fortnight of hype, is still anti-climatic. It’s in February, closer to April Fools Day than Thanksgiving. Florida State won the collegiate national championship a month ago.
And then there’s this: It’s the National Football League. It doesn’t come much more arrogant than this $9 billion industry. Its mantra: “We are the NFL. We know you will watch.” And it’s continually reinforced in ratings. It’s why advertisers pay obscene amounts for a 30-second spot.
It’s why the NFL and its Meadowlands-enamored commissioner, Roger Goodell, cavalierly awarded this game to northern New Jersey. And, yes, playing an incentivizing role in the building of the $1.6 billion MetLife Stadium was hardly incidental.
Such scenarios mattered more than the fact that it was OUTDOORS. It speaks volumes that Arctic variables prodded the NFL into contingency-plan mode. The big game could have been switched at virtually the last minute to Friday, Saturday or Monday. Can you say travel logistics from hell?
But the NFL, to be sure, is confident that these same VIPsters would still pay to say they were there, travel inconveniences and awful weather be damned. The party-hardy, early crowd could just order out and make do on cachet. All metropolitan hotels have lounges. Enjoy.
How’s that for catering to your fan base?
And last but hardly least, down here we all know that it should be Tampa hosting Sunday’s internationally-televised event. This city was a close runner-up to East Rutherford, N.J. in 2010. It has a track record for delivering–four times. We have no need for snowplows and highway salting.
But the sheer comfort of fans and the sheer integrity of the game–will it be decided by better players or bitter elements?–was not the NFL’s top priority. How hypocritical. Besides, the NFL knows the same millions of viewers will still be watching while the cameras focus in on juvenile end zone dances, boorish gestures and the increasingly popular dreadlock competition.
And one more thing. Those in-stadium fans so prized by the NFL will have more than a pricey souvenir program, ticket stub and receipt for price-gouged parking to take home. They will also receive a weather-buffeting kit that includes ear muffs, hand warmers and lip balm.