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| Super Bowl Hoopla, 2015. |
Sometime
I feel like a secular Jew on Christmas when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around. I don’t
begrudge every one having a good time.
I know the songs and will sing along. I might even put up a tree for the kids.
But my heart really isn’t in it.
Lest
you think I am one of those effete snobs
who disdain sports and mocks popular culture while pretending only to be interested obscure
novels by lesbian hunch backs or
festivals of avant-garde Montenegrin mid-century documentaries,
I like baseball, hillbilly music, and the classic American sit-com. And attractive women in all of their pulchritude. I have
hair on my chest, fire in the belly,
and an occasional embarrassing stirring
in my loins.
But
I long ago lost what little interest
I ever had in professional football. Most years I can barely tell you who is
playing in the Big Game unless
the Chicago Bears are in it which
seems to happen only ever couple of decades.
I can’t avoid the Bears. They are the
home team and on Sunday nights at
the gas station where I work guys wander in various kinds of league approved apparel and expect me
to engage in semi-knowledgeable
conversation about the game. I’ve
learned to peek at the TV sports on
my way out the door to check the score and maybe note one big play.
As
cultural traditions go, the Super
Bowl does not have an ancient pedigree,
but in an astonishing few years it
became a great American feast and
festival day—the only one associated with neither a religious or secular holiday. Only Thanksgiving
is celebrated with more gatherings
public and private followed at
some distance by Christmas and further back yet by the summer cook-out occasions.
In
terms of economic impact it ranks
well behind Christmas and hot on the
tail of Thanksgiving and Halloween
but greater than such gift giving occasions as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and pitiful bring-up-the-rear Father’s Day. Among those cashing in on consumer spending are beer and spirits vendors, groceries and caterers, bars and restaurants, and providers of team
apparel and licensed products. In
recent years the sales of large flat
screen High Definition (HD) television sets have spiked sharply right before game day, although now that they have become ubiquitous in most homes, that trend is expected to taper off. In addition advertising and promotional
income surges for broadcasters
and even hard pressed print media. The economies of the host city and state are boosted as tens of thousands of visitors flood local hotels and entertainment
spots for events that stretch out
more than a week.
We
are talking about a big frigin’ deal. The origins
were more humble.
After
reaching an agreement to fully merge the long established National
Football League (NFL) and the upstart American Football League (AFL)
representative teams began to meet
for an inter-league championship
game in January of 1967. The first two games
were utterly dominated by the traditional
NFL powerhouse Green Bay Packers let
by the game’s most iconic coach, Vince Lombardi. Held on neutral
fields, both games had trouble
attracting ticket buyers and the games were played in stadiums with lots of empty seats. The early games failed to attract many TV viewers outside the markets of the contending teams largely because the
older NFL was viewed as perpetually
superior to the juvenile AFL.
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| Broadway Joe Namath leading his upstart New York Jets to victory in Super Bowl III established the game as a marquee event. |
At
first simply called the NFL-AFL
Championship Game, the owner of the Kansas
City Chiefs, William Alexander is credited
with coining the name Super Bowls by
marring the established use of the word bowl
for college post season games with super, inspired by his children’s latest fad toy, the Super Ball. The name caught
on with the press before the second game in 1968. Reluctant owners finally agreed
to make it the official name for
the game in an attempt to hype interest
in their floundering event.
Super Bowl III was the first to
officially use the name and the first to use Roman Numerals. I and II were retroactively applied to the first
two championships. It is doubtful that
that looked more than forty years into
the future when Super Bowl logos would sometimes feature long strings of letters unfathomable to most Americans
since Roman Numerals are now hardly
taught in schools.
Any
way, it was not the numerals but the victory
of the AFL New York Jets led by brash and flashy quarterback Broadway Joe Namath that really established the game in the public mind. AFL teams were now competitive.
Not
directly related to the game, the premier of Monday Night Football on ABC
TV ushered in an era when
football finally eclipsed baseball
in popularity and became hailed as America’s Game with all of the macho
and vaguely jingoistic swagger that
the title inferred.
In
the early years the Super Bowl was treated pretty much like any other
game. The half time entertainment was not
much more elaborate than a major college game and featured acts like Up With
People and performances were often not
shown in their entirety to make room for chatter and game analyses
by the announcers. The National
Anthem was likely to be performed by a college
or military band or sung third tier
performers like Anita Bryant.
I
was personally unaware of all of
these developments. I don’t remember seeing that first
championship game because I worked
Sunday afternoons washing dishes at a Howard
Johnson’s in Skokie. I graduated
high school that spring and for the next several years was either away at college or was making my way in Chicago as a cultural hippy and a radical activist. I seldom
had a TV set and my social circles were not much interested
in pro football.
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| Super Bowl parties have become major annual events boosting the bottom line of many economic interests. |
It
wasn’t until 1974 that I attended my
first Super Bowl party. I was
invited by a drinking buddy to come
to an event in an apartment on the
edge of Old Town attended mostly by off-duty bartenders and pub waitresses. I was astonished
to find the second floor flat jammed with scores of folks; a full size keg in a tub in the kitchen; a sideboard
groaning under a huge collection of
whisky, vodka, bandy, and wine
bottles; pots of bubbling chili; and platters
full of cold cuts, cheese, and bread. Some folks jammed
around the one color TV set in the living room to watch the Miami Dolphins stomp the Minnesota Vikings, but others milled around the other rooms drinking, eating, passing joints,
and making passes at each other. The Super
Bowl Party was already an
established tradition.
Over
the next several years I occasionally tagged
along with friends to other parties.
Hell I was always up for a good
party, even if the game itself was mystery to me.
By
the 1980’s when I had gotten married
and moved to the boonies of McHenry County the playoff format had expanded and League officials began trying to lure younger audiences with big name
acts both for the Anthem and the half time shows. TV began adding
hours of pre-game programing and advertisers
began showing off special commercials
made just for the big game, like IBM’s famous
take-off on Charlie Chaplain’s Modern Times.
In
1991 with the Gulf War on the game
became a pageant of patriotism with
for the first time a flyover by military jets, an all-services Color Guard, and Whitney Houston’s famous rendition of the anthem. After that there was no turning back. The
military became a fixture as did the
custom of inviting divas and pop superstars. The U.S.
Army even became one of the game’s
regular sponsors.
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| Hyper patriotism and militarism have become post 9/11 hallmarks of the Super Bowl. |
After
the September 11th attack and during
the Iraq and Afghan Wars the confabulation of the game with the
military and hyper patriotism
intensified. The singing of God
Bless America was added to
the pre-game pageantry alongside the Anthem.
I
sometimes went to a Party—my brother in
law used to host one. But except for
Super Bowl XX when the Chicago Bears won I had next to no
interest in the games themselves.
Since
2002 I have worked nights at gas stations as a second job on Super Bowl Sundays, the first few years on second shift during the game, and
now on third shift meaning I sleep through the contest. Perhaps that has contributed to my alienation.
During
those years Super Bowl Sunday really became an all-purpose spectacle. In
addition to the high voltage
entertainment, watching and rating the parade
of clever new advertising became a major
attraction. So did stunts like the Bud Bowl, Puppy Bowl, and Lingerie
Bowl as well as counter programing
on other networks provide
entertainment even for those not interested in the game.
This
year in Super Bowl LI—that’s 51 to
the Latin illiterate—the Atlanta Falcons
are playing perennial powerhouse
the New England Patriots. I am told that outside the environs of the Hub of the Universe, New England is despised because Quarterback Tom Brady was caught
up in something called Deflategate involving
tampering with game balls and has a hot
foreign born former model for a wife
like the Pumpkin in the White House. Also Bill
Belichick in his record breaking 7th
appearance as Head Coach with
four wins is widely reviled as a cheater. Atlanta will be led by the apparently virtuous journeyman quarterback Matt Ryan and
underdog coach Dan Quinn who beat another perpetual power, the Green Bay Packers
to represent the NFC.
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| Lady Gaga's activist politics could spice up the Super Bowl half-time show this year. |
The
always provocative Lady Gaga will be the much talked-about star of the half-time extravaganza setting off speculation on if the outspoken defender of Gay Rights,
anti-bullying activist, Democrat,
and Trump critic will bring any or
all of that to the game produced by the notoriously
homophobic NFL and the Trump supporters among most of the game’s ownership and management as well as many—mostly White—stars, and flag waving fans. That could be interesting.
But
ask me if I have a pick in the game itself, and I would frankly have to answer,
“I don’t give a rat’s ass.”
