I find the Super Bowl to be an
almost sickening celebration of corporate excess and gluttony. And I even
covered the game a few months after September 11, 2001, when the festivities
were supposed to be more subdued.
I didn’t see anybody
going without.
People stuffed their
faces at the pre-game Super Bowl brunch, at the post-game party for special
guests, and at the individual parties during the week. And they stuffed their
suitcases with all the free trinkets the corporate partners gave away. It was debauchery,
and I felt like Nero. Then again, we were doing our patriotic duty, showing
terrorists they could not threaten our way of life. My stomach should have
received a Purple Heart.
I predict the Patriots will win Super Bowl XXXIX. Philadelphia is a good passing team and a sub-par
running team. The Patriots are good against the run. The Eagles will have
trouble running on New England, so Donovan McNabb must pass, which will be more
difficult because New England will expect that. The Patriots can run with Corey
Dillon because the Eagles are not a great run-stopping team. So, take the
Patriots and the points. Passing teams don’t fare well in Super Bowls against
Bill Belichick. Just ask the 1990 Bills and the 2001 Rams.
But there’s more to
the big game than betting lines. I once ran into Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman days before Super Bowl
XXXVII in San Diego and asked him if he was enjoying himself. Zimmerman’s
reply: “No, I hate Super Bowl week.”
Zimmerman can be
gruff.
He once told me how
he appeared on Good Morning America in 1993 to talk about Oilers offensive lineman David Williams, who missed a
regular season game and paycheck to be with his wife for the birth of their
first child. Charles Gibson asked Zimmerman how many NFL players would sit out
a game to be with their pregnant wives for delivery. Zimmerman thought it was a
silly question, so he said without elaboration, “Eight.”
Perhaps that was
Zimmerman’s way of getting back at a medium that has eroded good print
journalism. He was simply giving TV journalists what they’re always after: a
concise sound-bite.
Part of the reason he
hates Super Bowl week is because the hordes of TV cameras and reporters make it
impossible for print journalists to get substantive reports. The players are
focusing on lame sound-bites for TV, rather than meaningful thoughts for print.
Zimmerman remembers
when a reporter could actually sit down and have a significant conversation
with a Super Bowl player. Today, a media outlet has to pay billions of dollars
to be an NFL broadcast partner just for that kind of access, and still there’s hardly
any substance.
But the public doesn’t
demand substance, and the league cares mostly about ratings. NFL executives
brag that 800 million people from 229 countries and territories watched Super
Bowl XXXVIII, which sounds great.
But one of my
greatest fears is that the Super Bowl reaches such world popularity that the
game will no longer belong to America, leading Americans to reject it
altogether.
Do you want your children to one
day wake up to a Super Bowl Sunday when the national anthem has been replaced
by a Yanni song? I don’t. How would I talk to my children about that? I was a
wreck explaining Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, but Today gave me some good advice on how to broach the subject. And
then Matt Drudge blew up a picture of her nipple so large that I had absolute
confidence in my explanation.
But I’ve seen the
effects of over-popularity before. I remember original Metallica fans becoming
resentful when the band reached mainstream success in 1991. Suddenly, they
didn’t have Metallica all to themselves, and they ultimately rejected the band.
But Metallica made
more money. And I imagine the NFL would discard America if it could improve its
bottom line. The league worships the almighty profit. In fact, I can almost
hear the owners yelling all the way from Jacksonville: “Show me the Yanni!”
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2005.
