Well, I know how much many Slog regulars despise sports, but it’s not like a lot of other posts are clogging up teh internets right now, so prepare yourselves for a week of Super Bowl Slog Preview Questions:

Question One: Is the Super Bowl a perfectly fine culmination of legitimate sporting interests for many Americans who are not assholes, or is it just a clusterfuck of everything that is wrong with this benighted nation?

Discuss in comments. Anyone dismissing professional sports per se will not be taken seriously.

78 replies on “Super Bowl”

  1. Now that is about to become an willing platform for anti-abortion PR after refusing to allow any progressive values in the past, I would say one finally has to give in an say “clusterfuck…”

    Me and my family weren’t going to watch this year anyway. We can’t stand waiting for the football between the commercials anymore.

  3. @1 You framed your critique kind of lamely. the fact that one political commercial could make the cut with CBS is actually evidence that the economy is in the terlet (hence fewer Big $$$ advertisers) and so Tebow’s testimony is the dying gasp of the Right Wing Fucktards, admittedly aided and abetted by CBS’s “standards” department. the real issue with the SB is how much people LOVE the commercials v. the game.

  5. The latter. Its only purpose is to serve as a distraction and a “compensation for life” in Q.D. Leavis’s words — to allow sedentary Americans the dream that one day they too could be graceless, hulking, and unintelligent and still be admired for athletic prowess — yet it’s extremely boring.

  6. Don’t know about the question you asked, but fuck the Colts. I downloaded a patch to turn their jerseys into the Jets jerseys, so that I don’t have to cheer for the Saints.

  7. It’s vulgar entertainment, it is what it is. I want to claim the cultural high ground I have been guilty of putting on Judge Judy from time to time and enjoying it.

    In many ways it is a “clusterfuck of everything that is wrong with this benighted nation” because at it’s core it is an example of the most distasteful common denominators among us, gambling, violence, competition, displays of excess, corporate influence, irrational pride and allegiance, greed etc, however they are the common denominators amongst us, even though many of us try to be better.

  8. The Superbowl is not about sports, it is about commercials… if the game happens to go well, that is the bonus. I watched last years in Phoenix whilst wearing a Steelers tshirt, so it was fun and uncomfortable… but the commercials were not that good. there was an good cheesecake, though.

  9. The Superbowl has nothing to do with sports.

    If you want sports, watch college football or try to get season’s tickets to the Sounders.

  12. PS, cant we talk about the Grammys now since they just started on the West Coast? I mean, come on, Lady Gaga and Elton John in the same set? Who cares about the SuperBowl right now?

  13. dude.

    the question you posted is a bad one for this blog. all this is going to do is allow the hipster crowd that does most of the commenting on this site to come on here and, for no valid reason, look down their noses at people that are different than they are who might actually LIKE sports.

    yes. the superbowl is all about commercials, for the people who only watch it for the commercials. don’t be so full of your own sense of self worth that you look down on the people who actually enjoy watching an american sport; born on the playing fields of the ivy league. you know, that group of schools many of you could never have gotten into in the first place?

    at least it’s not soccer.

  14. I prefer the puppy bowl. It’s PUPPIES! Plus the super bowl is really more about expensive ads and delicious-yet-unhealthy snacks… Which would make it a culmination of American interests, just maybe not so much sporting interests.

  15. @13- The hipster crowd could always drink PBR and eat raw vegan gluten-free crackers while (ironically) enjoying the game. The super bowl’s a good excuse for a party, if nothing else.

  16. It’s both.

    And everybody who says it has nothing to do with sports is full of shit. Yes, yes, it’s horribly commercialized, people talk about the stupid ads for weeks, etc., etc., but there IS still a football game going on. For fans of the game, not to mention for the athletes, coaches, etc., that’s the interesting part. People who don’t like football should refrain from commenting on the Super Bowl. I don’t like ice skating, but I’m not so full of myself as to claim that ice skating competitions are somehow invalid because of it.

  17. Its a distraction, and a welcome one. I don’t see why people get so upset over it. Americans take it far less seriously than most other countries take the World Cup. Frankly I would find life without such diversions to be sterile and boring.

  18. I like the game itself. It’s a true season ending game that’s reached by a good playoff system (unlike the college football Div 1-A mess). I don’t like that most of the people in the stadium are there to be seen rather than watch the game or that since JT exposed Janet Jackson’s breast only old man bands play at halftime, but whatever. I’ll try to ignore the distractions and enjoy the game itself. I hope it’s a good one.

  19. @12, I swear I was thinking that exact same thing! Gaga and EJ were happily trashy. A “Fame Factory” set with an emcee, a gestural medley of hits, Gaga pitched into an incinerator, capped by a zombie piano duet. Seventh heaven.

  20. Chicago Fan @3
    Dude, its hard to take your superior intellect seriously when you are still gloating over stealing Silva in that baseball trade!

  24. The superbowl is gay and signifies the end of the football season. I enjoy it all sorts of ways.

    Social rituals can fill the vacuum symptomized by our “compensations for life.” How many shared holidays do we have in the US? I’ll take the superbowl, diwali and Chinese new year.

  26. I think the answer to your loaded question is somewhere between the two extremes you posit, though the Grammys and Oscars are definitely clusterfucks of everything wrong with our nation.

    I’m not a big fan of the over-officiating of postseason football, and I could do without all the stupid ads between the actual gameplaying.

  27. I have a hard time seeing how you can possibly compare the NFL and the Super Bowl in particular to anything vaguely resembling the game of football that originated in the Ivy League. It’s only slightly less blasphemous than comparing Mark McGwire to Babe Ruth, or the Pussycat Dolls to the Supremes.

  28. A couple years ago I moved to New Orleans and started learning about football. Now that I know how the game works, it’s actually pretty enjoyable to watch. The collective euphoria in this city when the Saints won last week was great fun. It’s neat to see rednecks and hipsters totally united, at least on this one issue. I don’t feel the need to analyze it much beyond that. I don’t think I’m an asshole, and I intend to have a blast watching the Super Bowl this year. WHO DAT!!

  29. I keep meaning to watch it some day so I can see the halftime entertainment and the commercials, but I don’t care enough about either football or advertisements to have actually done it.

  30. the worst thing about the super bowl is… It’s another football game. that’s it. It could be a good game, could be a blowout. Your team could play the Steelers and still lose!!! ARRGGG!!!! but in the end it’s just another footbal game.

    I am football fan and will be having a party featuring my new TV! yay consumerism.

  31. Superbowl hype is keeping football alive. Without the media circus around it there would be fewer people at all engaged in football.

    Who would care about competitive swimming if not for the Olympics?

  32. I watched more football this year than I have since I was a kid. It was fun til the Broncos choked, and are apparently being destroyed by a rookie coach with a Napoleon complex, but then that became fun to watch too.

    Regarding your question, CF, I agree with the slogger who said it’s both, but I care more about the World Series and Stanley Cup than the Super Bowl, so IMO I’d say that it’s a bit more clusterfuck than culmination.

  33. Boy, all of the years to attack the Super Bowl, this isn’t it!

    Normally the Super Bowl sucks for one and only one reason: the NFC sucks.

    But this year is one of the few where we have a powerful matchup!

    So, you should save your comments for a year when the NFC produces one its usually under powered loser teams.

    But this year…go out and by that widescreen tv and get ready for one of the Best Ever!!

  34. “Anyone dismissing professional sports per se will not be taken seriously.”

    Because SLOG is the place for serious reflection on important topics.

  36. @33 – The NFC has won more Superbowls than the AFC. Even if this decade has been dominated more by the AFC, it’s not like it’s been that long since the last NFC win, with the Giants beating the Patriots. And that game was almost certainly better than this game is going to be.

    @31 – Nobody cares about competitive swimming even with the Olympics

  38. Whatever the superbowl is… well, it’s “sports”, but in the same sense that the Mark McGwire / Sammy Sosa “home run derby” in 1998 was. That is to say: the actual winners are not the athletes on the field, but a series of small, anonymous laboratories toiling away in obscure office parks in silicon valley and New Jersey.

    Anyone who believes that the offensive line of any NFL team would pass a surprise blood+urine sampling by an independent laboratory is, bluntly, high. (And I’d bet that the pass rate among QBs, RBs and WRs would be no higher than 40%.)

  41. @12 – I loved having Lady Gaga and Elton John – that was cool – but I am on Jackson overload and wished the Black Eyed Peas hadn’t been so out of breath on their songs.

  44. I love Superbowl Sunday–it’s a perfect day to go to whatever movie or exhibit is hot–shop anywhere without crowds–go for a fun drive on any empty freeway. Could we have more than one per year????

  45. People who enjoy watching football must be especially frustrated at the Super Bowl, when the usual 11 minutes of action in an NFL game is accompanied not by the usual 60 minutes of commercials, but by nearly twice that amount. Among other things that get more airtime than football action: replays, shots of coaches standing on the sidelines (gripping stuff) and injured players being helped off the field.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…

  46. I’m with the apparently extreme minority that actually watches for the game. Yes, in some seasons it’s anticlimactic, but occasionally you end up with a really good game. The Giants-Patriots game in February ’08 is one such example.

    Sure, the commercials and the halftime show are a part of the experience, and it’s a little ridiculous how an hourlong game gets extended into four hours, but people who say that the superbowl “isn’t about football” probably weren’t into football in the first place. I agree with above posters that pro football has one of the best playoff systems of professional sports; the Super Bowl is so much fun, in part, because of how little interconference play there is during the regular season.

    Besides, all the downtime (commercials, timeouts, the various non-play-camera shots described so aptly by Fnarf) is an excuse to eat wings and drink beer. Good stuff. 🙂

  47. @46 – If they played more than “11 minutes” they’d be dead half-way through the season. It’s bad enough they extended the season.

  48. I’m usually meh on the Superbowl, I really only care if I am somehow emotionally invested in one of the teams playing. But the part many people deride, the crass consumerism and spectacle, is actually pretty fucking brilliant. Fans get to see occasionally good football, and millions of idiot housefrau’s get to spend the next week endlessly analyzing the commercials and whatever over the hill rock band played the halftime show.

    me, I’m in it for the yearly chili cook off.

    and @31. Give yourself a pat on the back for saying the stupidest thing I have read on Slog in weeks.

  51. @ 46, except most football fans are also Superbowl commercial fans. I went to a party last year and they had 3D glasses for those commercials. Everyone whooped it up.

    On the other hand, I bet the people actually attending the Super Bowl are pretty frustrated during the commercial breaks.

  52. I find NFC/AFC Championship weekend — twice as many games, about equal importance, home crowds, weather, and the focus on the football — far more interesting and enjoyable than the overhyped, distracted, and sterile environment of the Super Bowl itself.

  54. Has anyone done that same “minutes of actual action” analysis for baseball? It can’t be much, though it would miss the point just as well.

  55. Well, baseball has about three times as many plays, so I would guess there’s about twice as much time-of-action. Quite a bit more, if you count from time of set with men on base, as you should (a base can be stolen at any time, so that’s live action time).

    Basketball is pretty straight-forward 48 minutes, albeit with many, many breaks and stoppages; hockey likewise, for 60 minutes of actual play. Soccer, which is a genuinely athletic competition, is continuous for 90 minutes with one break, and any other stoppages are added back on at the end.

  58. @56

    Football is to powerlifting as soccer is to cardio work. To call it not an athletic competition is pretty absurd. Consider that the players of the field have devoted years of training to explode and give it 100% for their 2 minutes of “playing” time each week.

    Also, it’s a discredit to not count the time while they are lined up. Half the game is feints, snap counts, and reaction time to the snap.

    And is there any evidence, other than people’s big = dumb bias that football players are less intelligent than other athletes/non-science professions? After years they may have some concussions, sure, but is that even any worse than the low-grade brain damage soccer players live with?

  59. When you consider that the average football play lasts for something like 5 or 6 seconds, you actually get to see quite a bit in 11 minutes of live game action. You end up getting to see each team run 50-60 plays per game. Personally, I don’t mind the breaks so much, because unlike hockey or soccer, I don’t have to always worry that if I get up to use the bathroom I’m going to miss a key play in the game.

  60. The Super Bowl is an interesting case because it’s one of the few sporting events that people who don’t pay any attention to sports actually follow (in the U.S., at least, the only other one is the Olympics). As such it needs a lot of extra glitz, hype, and attraction to grab non-sports viewers (i.e. halftime shows, commercials, etc).

    To be perfectly honest, I much prefer the excessive commercialization of the NFL and other major professional sports to that of the NCAA, because the professionals are at least well compensated for making millions of dollars for the networks and NCAA officials–not to mention the universities. Many collegiate “scholar”-athletes never even graduate, and very very few are talented enough to make the pros. Those that are good enough risk career ending injuries every time they take the field (see: Bradford, Sam), and yet the sports “experts” are calling for a an additional round or two of playoffs because arguments between sports fans that never attended any of the schools in question are far more important than, say, a young man’s future or well-being.

  61. And all of the people saying that “football players are all obese, unhealthy, lumbering, etc.” do not ever actually watch football. The big fat guys, the offensive and defensive linemen, only account for 9 of the 22 people on the field at any given time. Quarterbacks, cornerbacks, wide receivers, safeties, tight ends, (some) running backs, and of course kickers and punters don’t fit that mold at all. The most exciting players in the game today are muscular, trim and exceedingly fit.

  62. For about 25 years, I’ve been getting together with a group of friends for the Super Bowl, but I’m probably the only one who doesn’t care about the game. I just go for the friendship, the food and the music at half-time (favorite show in recent memory was Prince.) I would have been interested this year had the Vikings won the Mississippi River playoff but, alas, they fumbled away their chance.

  63. @ 60, 61, 63: THANK YOU. Well said both of you.

    @64 – I’m so friggin’ disappointed about that. The Saints didn’t distinguish themselves… the Vikings just handed it to them.

  66. Sounders ftw!

    That said, if you can afford to go to the SuperBowl, spend the money on seasons tickets to a local college football team instead – you’ll get way more value for your money, even if it is overpriced.

  67. #63 – And, for that matter, even the “big fat guys” on the lines can dance better than you and me–they have to be be exceedingly agile, or they wouldn’t have their jobs. Especially the DEs and OTs.

  68. @ 68, college sports all suck. I want to see the best play the best, and you only get that at the pro level. I don’t give a crap if the kids are “more enthusiastic,” “less jaded,” or whatever, they also don’t play as well. College football is full of games where one team beats the other by 50 points. Where’s the fun in that?

  69. Never been a fan of the Super Bowl. Nothing against the sport, just that it times with an uptake in domestic violence. Holiday bills have come do and alcohol are part of the issue as well, can’t put it all on the SB just that the timing stinks.

  72. 72:

    I actually work with women in DV situations. I’ll give them your opinion, they could not possibly know about what happens in their own lives. Right?

  74. Clusterfuck of everything that’s wrong. The ads, the head injuries, the wasted talent, the enormous amounts of money, the boring glorified chess match where people get horrible disfigured if only to bring the skin of a pig a few yards *forward*.Waste of space.

  75. @46- Replays are essential to the watching experience. You can’t count replays against the entertainment time of American Football.

  76. The main issue I have with the Super Bowl is that it means there won’t be any pro football on TV for a number of months. Back to Mondays as usual….

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