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. @ 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.

  2. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  8. @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?

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. @ 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.

  16. 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.

  17. #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.

  18. @ 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?

  19. 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.

  22. 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?

  24. 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.

  25. @46- Replays are essential to the watching experience. You can’t count replays against the entertainment time of American Football.

  26. 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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