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The Super Bowl: All American - All Excess!
January 2009
by Richard L. Weaver II, PhD
“It’s a spectacle of gross and glorious excess that
glitters with undeliverable promise,” writes Phil Reisman at
LoHud.com, in an essay entitled, “Reisman ponders the meaning of the
Super Bowl.” Reisman continues, “The Super Bowl burns with promise and
quickly fizzles out, and that is a distinctly American phenomenon. Oddly, it
is even a beautiful thing.”
The spectacle of gross and glorious excess of the game itself barely exceeds
the hype and pre-game brouhaha. Look at the pre-game advertising, the sports
writers’ predictions, the betting (more on that in a moment), the food
preparation, and all the news outlets worldwide flocking to the venue to
report the game’s happenings. It has been reported that one quarter of the
tickets for the 2009 Super Bowl will be priced at $1,000.00 each. That’s
glorious excess!
You’ve got to love it! There is nothing like it in the world. As Gail Leino
writes in her essay, at
ezinearticles.com, “Superbowl Sunday Party,” “This is the great American
tradition of celebrating the greatness of football!” Robert Paul Reyes,
writing for the
American Chronicle, January 31,
2006, in an essay entitled, “The wretched excess of the Super Bowl,” writes,
“The Super Bowl transcends sports, it is a celebration of American power.
It’s an ‘in your face’ glorification of American supremacy.”
Reyes, in the essay just referred to about its wretched excess, says,
“Anything that happens during the Super Bowl is magnified beyond
comprehension.”
The Super Bowl represents excess in the extreme. It is “the most-watched
U.S. television broadcast of the year, and has become likened to a de facto
U.S. national holiday,” it says at
Wikipedia. That alone
doesn’t merit “excess” status, but, according to Wikipedia, “Super Bowl
Sunday is the second-largest U.S. food consumption day, following
Thanksgiving.” For some, the Super Bowl is dedicated to food and drink.
That's excess.
Last year’s (2008) upset victory by the New York Giants over the New England
Patriots was watched by a record 97.5 million Americans — “marking the
biggest TV audience in Super Bowl history and the second most-watched U.S.
telecast ever,” according to Paul Thomasch writing for the
New York Times. Thomasch says,
“The number of viewers watching the National Football League championship
game was surpassed only by the 106 million who saw the series finale of
“M*A*S*H” in February 1983, according to data issued ... by Nielsen Media
Research.”
Let’s examine further excesses. Advertisers for the 2007 game paid an
average of $2.7 million for a 30-second spot. Some people watch the game
just to see the commercials. The
advertisements are truly the subject of anticipation and speculation.
Super Bowl commercials received in excess of 15 million additional views
online. In the past 20 years, Super Bowl ads have translated into $1.84
billion of network sales from over 200 different advertisers, according to
TNS Media Intelligence.
According to TNS MI (via
MarketingCharts), the
top five Super Bowl advertisers of the past 20 years (1988-2007) have
spent $659 million on advertising during the game. This accounts for 36
percent of total advertising dollars spent in the game. Anheuser Busch and
Pepsico have appeared in every game during this period, and they lead the
pack. General Motors, Time Warner, and Walt Disney are next.
There is a related excess as well. The Super Bowl seems to be the American
holiday of consumerism. The motto is “buy, buy, buy, and we’ll try to sell
you more.” According to “The
Super Bowl, Economics, and You,” “Sales of TVs spike around the Super
Bowl.” From
The New Mexico Business Weekly (January 29, 2008) , in an essay
entitled, “Super Bowl viewers will spend $10B on TVs furniture,” it says,
“Consumers plan to nearly double what they spent last year on televisions
and furniture in anticipation of the big day....Consumers plan to buy nearly
4 million televisions....Nearly 2 million pieces of furniture will be
sold....158 million people ... [will] spend an average of $59.90 on related
merchandise, making expected total spending around $9.5 billion.”
Even some of the ancillary Super Bowl items reveal excess. For example, the
cost of Super Bowl Rings. The league pays for up to 150 rings at $5,000 per
ring (plus adjustments for increases in gold and diamonds). That’s
$750,000.00-plus, just for the rings. Also, the league pays for 150 pieces
of jewelry for the losing team as well, and these pieces cost about half the
price set for the Super Bowl ring — another $375,000.00. That’s over a
million dollars just for Super Bowl jewelry.
Richard Sandomir, in his essay, “Super Bowl Excess for a Sturdy Coffee
Table,” discusses yet another excess. His essay is printed in the
New York Times, January 17, 2006.
Sandomir writes that the book that chronicles the history of the Super Bowl
will weigh 85 pounds, contain nearly 2,000 images (out of two million
examined), and 500,000 words. The cost of the book is $4,000.00 for the
first 19,600 copies and $25,000 for the 400 M.V.P. autographed copies. How
big is the book? It measures nearly two feet long on all sides, and it is
six inches thick. That’s excess!
Most people know about the excess of gambling. At
Wikianswers.com, it states that, “Over 10 billion dollars is predicted
to be risked on Super Bowl XLII by more than 200 million people around the
world. The Super Bowl is the biggest one-day sports betting event of every
year.” At
Bookmaker.com, it says, “Super Bowl betting records prove that this
activity is a huge moneymaking deal both for sportsbooks and sports bettors
all around the world. And now, betting on the Super Bowl can be done with a
wide variety of options, including office pools, proposition bets,
handicapping contests and many more.”
During the game, of course, the excess continues. It is covered by a minimum
of 36 cameras and 60 microphones, and there are over 3,000 credited
reporters working at the game.
Sandomir calls the Super Bowl “an orgiastic eruption of football,
cholesterol, [and] sexagenarian rock stars.” At Wikipedia, there is an entry
entitled, “Super Bowl halftime shows, which states, “In the United States,
the halftime show for the Super Bowl is a highlight of the event, can cost
millions to stage, and employ hundreds. It often serves as a crossover from
pop culture.” Shows range from performance stunts, to controversy, and even
pure musicianship, and it costs sponsors between 12 and 15 million dollars
to sponsor a halftime show. In 2008, the halftime show was watched by close
to 150 million people.
Greg Easterbook,in a New York Times
essay, February 6, 2005, “A Super (Bowl) Break; Don’t Analyze That: A
Day of Excess Won’t Kill Us,” says, “The Super Bowl is outsized,
preposterous, excessive — which is the great thing about it. This is also
why attempts to find hidden meaning in the Super Bowl are doomed to
futility. The game has no vast social significance. The Super Bowl is just a
big, overdone party” — all American, all excess. Nothing exceeds like
excess.
At msnbc, the essay
is called, “Super Bowl coverage turns to ‘Idol’ for ratings: Seacrest,
Abdul, Sparks lend star power; Petty delivers classic halftime act,”
February 3, 2008, and it details the halftime extravaganza at the 2008 Super
Bowl.
James T. O’Brien, just a sophomore journalism student on January 28, 2004,
writing for the
North Texas Daily, has put the
Super Bowl into proper perspective in his life in his essay, “Super Bowl:
better than Christmas??” The subtext reads: “Now that James O'Brien is
grown, kiddie holidays like Christmas and Easter have lost their magic and
appeal for him. Now Super Bowl Sunday has become one of his new favorites.”
Read this essay and enjoy.
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The Super Bowl: All American - All Excess!
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The Super Bowl And Then Some
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Michigan versus Ohio State: Just another football game? It’s a game And Then Some
The Super Bowl And Then Some
February 2008
by Richard L. Weaver II, PhD
The hype surrounding the Super Bowl
game every year is the most frenzied, adrenalized, amped-up to be found on
television. There really are few other events that represent this level of
hysteria. It is the most watched U.S. television broadcast of the year — 80
to 90 million Americans will watch. Also, with that many people watching, it
isn’t surprising that it is the second largest U.S. food consumption day;
Thanksgiving is the first. The following joke represents how the event
causes some people to become completely deranged.
A man had 50-yard line tickets for the Patriot’s Super Bowl game. As he sits
down, a man comes down and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to
him. "No," he says, "The seat is empty."
"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a
seat like this for the Super Bowl game and not use it?"
"Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my
wife, but she passed away. This is the first game we haven't gone to
together since we got married in 1949."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone
else -- a friend or relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?"
The man shakes his head. "No, they're all at the funeral."
An old joke, true, but it makes the point.
The single biggest complaint I have — and it was underscored when I lived
for a brief time in Australia when I went to see an “Aussie-Rules Football”
game — is the model that football linesmen (guards and tackles) provide for
our youth. In Australia all players on the field look much like our
quarterbacks and half-backs. Here, in a society already having problems with
the overweight and obese, we signal many who aspire to be football players
to overeat if they want a chance — and, not only that, to eat the wrong
kinds of foods.
The second complaint is the toll that playing football takes on the body — a
toll, in many cases, that players must not just live with, but live in pain
with for the rest of their lives. It reminds me of a second joke.
During the Super Bowl, there was another football game of note between the
big animals and the little animals. The big animals were crushing little
animals and at half-time, the coach made a passionate speech to rally the
little animals.
At the start of the second half the big animals had the ball. The first
play, the elephant got stopped for no gain. The second play, the rhino was
stopped for no gain. On third down, the hippo was thrown for a 5 yard loss.
The defense huddled around the coach and he asked excitedly, "Who stopped
the elephant?"
"I did," said the centipede.
"Who stopped the rhino?"
"Uh, that was me too," said the centipede.
"And how about the hippo? Who hit him for a 5 yard loss?"
"Well, that was me as well," said the centipede.
"So where were you during the first half?" demanded the coach.
"Well," said the centipede, "I was having my ankles taped."
Good joke, true, but without taped ankles the centipede knew he would live a
lifetime with arthritic or broken ankles — an example of what I’m talking
about.
Another complaint I have about all the Super Bowl hype is how this truly and
solely U.S. celebration extols the virtues of alcohol. It is, of course,
praised enthusiastically in the pre-game publicity when cameras rove
numerous tailgating parties and participants raise their cans lauding the
opportunity to imbibe. It is raved about in the advertisements during the
game, too, when the fun people have is demonstrably improved if alcohol
contributes. The humorous, contagious, and expensive advertising is even
promoted well before the games when we are told how much beer companies have
spent for their advertising, and how one company in particular has purchased
more advertising space than all other advertisers. Even the fact that
alcohol is sold at any sporting event strongly suggests — at least to this
observer — that fun and consuming alcohol are one.
A final complaint is how sports contests like the Super Bowl promote
gambling. With lotteries that are promoted by state governments almost a
fixture in our society, one can hardly escape the omnipresence of gambling —
like skin penetrated by infective larvae — in our environment. Nothing
galvanizes the casual bettor like the Super Bowl. Millions of Americans will
log onto their computers before 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday to either place
traditional bets or engage in new forms of gambling that can’t be found at
land-based sports books. It is likely that more than $450 million will be
spent online alone. Innocent office pools will attract many who have never
gambled before and a certain percentage of adolescents and adults who gamble
on these games will eventually become addicted to the action — the rush —
the thrill of sometimes winning — and will become problem or compulsive
gamblers. Without treatment their lives will become progressively worse.
Who is my pick to win the 2008 Super Bowl? It can be summed up in this final
joke:
A first-grade teacher explains to her class that she is a New York Giant’s
fan. She asks her students to raise their hands if they are Giants fans too.
Not really knowing what a Giants fan is, but wanting to be liked by their
teacher, their hands fly into the air.
There is, however, one exception. Kelly has not gone along with the crowd.
The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different. "Because I'm not a
Giants fan" she reports.
"Then," asks the teacher," What are you?"
"I'm a New England Patriot’s fan," boasts the little girl.
The teacher asks Susie why she is a Giants fan.
"Well, my Dad and Mom are Giants fans, so I'm a Giants fan too," she
responds.
"That's no reason," the teacher says. "What if your mom was a moron, and
your dad was an idiot. What would you be then?"
Kelly smiles and says, "Then I'd be a Giants fan."
Michigan versus Ohio State: Just another football game?
It’s a game... And Then Some
November 2007
by Richard L. Weaver II, PhD
In the sports section of The (Toledo) Blade, under the title “College
Football,” the headline read, “For the 65th time, OSU or UM will be Big Ten
champ.” Ever since 1952 — for 55 years — I have come under the spell of this
rivalry. And now, with just a week left in the season, it’s the Big Two and
little else.
When my wife and I attended the University of Michigan their primary rival
was Michigan State. It was Bo Schembechler’s presence at Michigan, beginning
in 1969, that helped ignite the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry. You have to
remember that Schembechler was as much Ohio as Michigan. Born in Barberton,
Ohio, he earned a master’s degree in 1952 at Ohio State and served as a
graduate assistant football coach there under Woody Hayes. It was Bo
Schembechler who elevated OSU to the status of primary rival of the UofM and
he who raised the Hayes-Schembecler rivalry to a level that would allow
Schembechler’s victories over that coach down south the kind of notoriety he
desired. Bo would be defeating his teacher and mentor.
Both my wife and I grew up knowing about and appreciating college football
but not just any college football: Big Ten college football. We found out
how unique such an appreciation is while traveling in Europe. The program
guide on our Great Rivers of Europe cruise, Martin Payrhuber, an Austrian,
told us that people in Europe have no understanding of our fascination with
young 18-19 year-old kids running around a field with no professional
training, without being paid, and with no professional contracts. He said he
understands it because he was a teaching assistant at the University of
Minnesota for three terms and attended a Gophers game in their covered
arena, but others in Europe (and Australia as well, I might add) just don’t
get it.
My wife’s and my interest in Big Ten football run far deeper than
Payrhuber’s both having fathers who were University of Michigan professors,
both possessing degrees from there, and both having brothers or sisters with
degrees from there as well. We not only grew up in homes where Saturday
football was a standard fixture, where families were caught up in the
importance of wins and losses, but where the display of emotion was not just
accepted but expected. Such examples create codes of behavior—habits deeply
etched on the psyche, expectations lodged in the brain’s synapses, and,
physiologically, a color of blood about which Michigan fans are embarrassed
over at least once a year.
The year 2006 revealed a glimpse of the depth of our concern, because it was
different from any other. You might say, how can any single year be that
much different from nearly sixty years of games we have witnessed? Ohio
State and Michigan had actually met 102 times before the stars aligned in
such a manner that they found themselves ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the
country—not just in the Big Ten. That might be sufficient had not that fact
coincided with the death of Bo Schembechler the Friday night before the
game, giving “the game” an almost surreal amount of hype — elevating it to
what must be considered mythical proportions.
In the week leading up to “the game” the overriding questions were, would it
live up to expectations, and should the teams meet again for the national
championship? Short answers could easily be: “Great game,” and “Been there;
done that.” As much as we hoped that Michigan would storm into Columbus and
take a berth in the Bowl Championship Series title game just because Lloyd
Carr deserved it, the problem was simply that in sports, happy endings
cannot be scripted; they have to be earned.
My wife and I watched the game with 27 others. There was an overabundance of
food, and as a metaphor for the game itself, there was more than enough for
everyone — food to satisfy any taste. Our group was separated into two
areas. When one team would score, a portion of those in one room would storm
into the other loudly cheering and shouting, and when the score went the
other way, those from the already stormed room would just as vehemently romp
into the other one hollering and rejoicing — like schoolchildren playing
one-upmanship. With a final score of 42-39, there were many opportunities
for rabble rousing. (OSU won.)
The game, just as our spread of delicious food, had all the trimmings of a
classic. There were the sterling performances from two Heisman Trophy
candidates, a key penalty (when a UofM linebacker, Shawn Crable, chased a
scrambling Troy Smith and knocked him out of bounds with a helmet-to-helmet
hit in front of the Buckeye bench) that swung momentum late, and an unknown
player (Chris Wells, a freshman, scampering for a 52-yard touchdown in the
first half ) rising to steal the show.
The No. 1 quarterback, OSUs Troy Smith, a senior, showed enough talent and
ability against stellar competition to win the Heisman Trophy. He was the
first quarterback to beat Michigan three times since 1936. Smith, too, was
involved in three turnovers in the second half that allowed the Wolverines
to keep the score close. Mike Hart, a junior, finished the game with 23
carries for 142 yards and 3 touchdowns and, as a result, could not be
counted out in the race for the Heisman. Along with Smith, the two teams
proved once again that they had a rivalry for the ages.
The pre-game hype was unbelievable. There was talk, for example, that
Buckeyes-Wolverines were college football’s Armageddon. It was touted, too,
as the latest incarnation of the “Game of the Century” — words, of course,
that happily assuage a Big Ten college football fan’s inner sense of well
being yet pump adrenaline into an already-stimulated physiology.
When the BCS rankings were issued on Sunday evening following the game, OSU
was ranked first and Michigan second. Because of other games by other teams
there was no OSU-Michigan rematch.
In retrospect, there was the build up, the thrill of “the game,” the joy of
being with friends, the aroma of food (an in-door tailgating experience),
the ambiance of watching college football on five or six television sets,
but, in the end, it was being healthy, happy, and free to appreciate it all.
Too bad at least one of those TV sets couldn’t have broadcast a Michigan
victory in 2006.
For all the 2006 hype, we’re here again in 2007. No, there is no national
championship at stake — at least not for Michigan with an opening day loss
to Appalachian State followed by a second loss to Oregon — but when they
meet in Ann Arbor November 17, one champion will walk off that field. The
Buckeyes have won 31, the Wolverines 42; some they have shared. For Michigan
in 2007, the Big Ten title is the primary remaining goal, a title they have
not won since 2004 when they shared it with Iowa. So the hype continues, the
adrenaline pumps, and the expectations rise. Just another football game? Not
a chance.
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The Super Bowl: All American - All Excess!
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The Super Bowl And Then Some
>
Michigan versus Ohio State: Just another football game? It’s a game And Then Some
