Fireworks on July 4. Turkey on Thanksgiving. Voting on election day.
OK, so maybe that one isn’t as obligatory - but watching the Super Bowl is.
No event is more widely watched each year than the Super Bowl. In fact, half of the top 20 highest-rated television programs in U.S. history are Super Bowls, according to Nielsen Media Research, and since so many people watch Super Bowls in groups or at parties, that number is probably skewed. Since 2000, eight of the top 10 most-watched shows are Super Bowls.
I once got a fantastic history book for Christmas which chronicled the first 24 Super Bowls, and the author of one of the prologues posed the question “does anyone NOT watch the Super Bowl?”
It was inconceivable to me then, but not anymore.
Fox and the NFL are salivating all the way to the bank over the likelihood that New England will beat the New York Giants and become just the second team in history to go undefeated (everyone is making a big deal over the Pats going 19-0 to the 1972 Dolphins’ 17-0, but you can’t really break a perfect record). Speculation abounds that this could be the highest-rated Super Bowl ever, which compels one question.
What else is on?
Any good college basketball games that day? Reruns of “Law & Order?” How about “Masterpiece Theater” on PBS, or highlights of some awesome Senate subcommittee meeting on C-SPAN?
My personal lack of interest in this year’s game stems partly from an extreme distaste for pretty much anyone associated with the Patriots and the Yankees-like hype they get from most national media outlets. The fact that the “other team” in the game is from New York doesn’t help. It’s almost like watching the Yankees and Red Sox in the American League playoffs.
Of course, lots of people who don’t care about either team will watch the Super Bowl anyway. That’s where the obligatory part comes in. The game is subordinate to The Event itself, as though it’s as much a status symbols as a sporting event. Everbody else is watching, so you don’t want to be the one who doesn’t, even if you - gasp - don’t care about football.
Realistically, when you judge the game based on its drama, the Super Bowl almost never lives up to its billing. Of the 41 previous games, you could probably count the number of games which were thrilling contests on one hand. Contrast that with events like the Final Four, World Series or even the NBA Playoffs, which, partly because there are more games involved, rarely disappoint the true sports fan.
Then again, the Super Bowl, for all its splendor, isn’t really for sports fans as much as The Consumer, is it? Hence the $2.7 million price tag for 30-second ad spot, the halftime show that’s longer than most high school football games, and the eight-plus hours of coverage to retread on stories that have already been told countless times during the agonizing two-week period between final two rounds of the playoffs.
Anyone involved with the NFL likes to make football a metaphor for life, in which case the Super Bowl is the perfect gag. More than 90 million people spend half their Sunday watching a game in which they have no vested interest.
Then again, 90 million is a relatively small minority in America, so I guess some people don’t watch the Super Bowl after all.
Only the Super Bowl can make the majority feel like a minority. Which side, then, will you be on this Sunday?