Super Blah, Part II - "Hottest Ticket in Town?"

KG threw me the alley-oop on this topic about a week and a half ago, so allow me to speak from experience about attending the Super Bowl. I had the extreme fortune of going to Super Bowl XL (that's 40 for those not versed in Roman numerals) in Detroit a few years back. Despite pretty sweet seats (lower level, halfway up, on one of the goal lines) and a fairly decent game (Pittsburgh beat Seattle 21-10, Willie Parker broke Marcus Allen's record for longest run in a Super Bowl), I left convinced that being in the building for the Super Bowl is an overrated experience.

Because so many of the tickets go to corporations or are given away to contest winners, about 60% of the people in the stands do not care who wins the game. That alone waters down the game experience, despite how good of a game it turns out to be. My hand is raised; being a Dallas fan, my only rooting interest in the game was to not see Pittsburgh tie the Cowboys and 49ers with a 5th Super Bowl. (Side note: congratulations Pittsburgh, you're one of three teams that would ever leave me in the position of actually rooting for Seattle) And even though I was very much into the game, if it's not your team in the game or you don't have a sizable bet out there, you're very much liable to care more about your next beer than about the big 3rd-and-4 coming up.

That's the major difference between being at the Super Bowl versus being at a World Series game or an earlier round NFL playoff game. Part of the enjoyment of being in the stadium is sitting in a section of people who are all your friends for 3 hours simply because they're rooting for the same uniforms as you are; after a big play being able to high-five and hug the same guy that you're probably going to end up cutting off and beeping at in the parking lot on the way home. That's why tickets cost good money - spending the day at the stadium and seeing the game happen in front of you should add value to experience, otherwise it's wasted money. And with the astronomical cost of Super Bowl tickets, the Super Bowl may be the biggest waste of money out there.

There are reasons for this beyond the "sterile corporate crowd" argument. First, being at an NFL game is less of an upgrade over watching on TV than being at a game of any of the other three major sports. Unless you have seats between the 40 yard lines, you have to roll the dice that a fair amount of the meaningful action will take place on your end of the field, and if not, you won't see any of the big plays too well. Also, at the Super Bowl, you get one replay of each play, usually not from a great angle, and they play it only once on the Jumbotron. Watching the Super Bowl on TV, you get every possible look at all the borderline plays, complete and super slow motion and zooms and anything else you'd want. This may not have been such a big issue 15-20 years ago, but now that instant replay has as much of a hold on the game as it does, being in the stadium leaves you with less of a "grip" on the game than watching from home.

For instance, fast forward to :53 on the video I linked to above, where Ben Roethlisberger scores a very questionable touchdown. I had a direct view of the play from my seat (I was on the side of the field that he rolled toward) and still had to text my friend back home to see if it looked like the play would be overturned. I'll still go to my grave saying Big Ben did not get in, but that's a different story.

And what about those terribly long TV timeouts during the Super Bowl? When watching on TV you can go to the bathroom or try to enjoy the commercials. If you're at the game? Nothing. Don't try going to the bathroom because you'll miss an entire series. And while everyone at home is laughing their ass off at the newest Geico or Miller Lite commercials, those in the seats get to watch all the players stand with their hands on their hips waiting for the whistle to blow again.

In conclusion, if you can go to the Super Bowl by winning a radio contest or a raffle or something, I'd say to absolutely go and have a ball, because at the very least it is a paid 3-4 day vacation in February. But if you're looking to bend over backwards financially or logistically, there are much better returns on investment than the Super Bowl.

Super Blah, Part I - "The Maria Menounos Factor"

Yes, that is a picture of Dwight Freeney's ankle. There was a memo sent out by CBS, ESPN, and NFL Network this week to anyone writing about the Super Bowl stating that it was mandatory to mention Dwight Freeney's ankle at least once. So now that that's out of the way....

I love the Super Bowl. Love love love it. I read every Super Bowl book I could get a hand on as a kid and have seen almost all of NFL Network's America's Game documentaries. I can name for you, on command, the winner, loser, score, starting quarterbacks, head coaches, MVP, and host city/stadium of EVERY single Super Bowl. I have always been in awe of it for what it is - the ultimate game of football played by 106 men who have earned the right to be referred to as the two best football teams on the face of the earth for that year.

But what I can't take is the bastardization of it all. The onslaught of Super Bowl hype is legalized torture. It's just too much. It was too much 10 years ago. I wince at the thought of what it will be 10 years from now. However, the actual football-related overload is not what gets to me; hell, in three days we won't even have a football game to overanalyze for another 7 months. It's the mass-media blitz that takes place, a storm that occurs when those without sufficient knowledge or interest in the game try to descend upon it as if their last name is Unitas or Parcells.

I call it "The Maria Menounos Factor." When you have a major sporting event and the likes of Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, The Insider, etc. send people to cover it, the event itself has officially been exploited beyond its true meaning. The Super Bowl has been more commercialized than Christmas, and sadly, the World Series is not far behind. Why do I name this after Maria Menounos? If you don't know who she is, she's a nice looking little number who corresponds for Access Hollywood and The Today Show and every so often tries to act like a big sports fan because she's from Massachusetts and someone told her that Boston teams have had a fair amount of success recently. So you get her prancing around in Red Sox attire at the All Star Celebrity Softball Game or tossing the ball around in Patriots gear at Gillette Stadium (sweet Steve Grogan throwback, no way she knows who he is).

All that would be well and good if she or any of her colleagues actually knew what the hell was going on. At the World Series last year, our self-proclaimed huge Red Sox fan was overheard before interviewing Mariano Rivera, "is he a pitcher?" Excuse me? My mom knows who Mariano Rivera is and she watches about 20 minutes of baseball a year. You say you're a huge sports fan and that question comes out of your mouth? If it were me running the show, I'd have Maria stand in the batter's box against one of Mariano's cut fastballs - guaranteed she'd remember he's a pitcher after that.

What I'm getting at is this: the Super Bowl has become such a hype machine that it commands the attention of those in the media who are much better suited talking about what size latté Paris Hilton got from Starbucks yesterday than trying to talk about Peyton Manning and Drew Brees. No one is saying that you have to be able to explain a zone blitz, a Cover 2, or a West Coast Offense in order to get a media credential for the Super Bowl, but please understand your setting. Your groundbreaking stories about whether Reggie Bush is going to propose to Kim Kardashian, or your questions about what brand of chewing tobacco Jeremy Shockey prefers are a colossal waste of time. There is a time and place for such talk, but not now nor here.

You are dragging down the enjoyment level of those who treat sports as a priceless hobby or pastime. Real football fans on Super Bowl week are like devout Christians on Easter, annoyed at the clutter and inconvenience caused by the throngs that only show up once a year. It should be one of the biggest days of the year, but you can't embrace it because someone's sitting in your seat.

Surgeon General's Warning

Peering out the office window on a cold and dreary winter afternoon, I can't help but snicker at the crowd of poor saps huddled outside the building. They are always there at their regular intervals, not because they are locked out, but because they're smoking.

Maybe I'm going to offend a lot of people, but if you were born circa 1975 or later and you smoke, well, you my friend, suck. It's one thing if you're from an older generation when smoking was pretty much a universally accepted practice. But if you grew up in the mid '70s or later, as the anti-smoking movement really gained legs (although the United States banned cigarette TV commercials in 1971), you have no excuse to be a smoker besides the fact that you are a weak person.

Be honest. You started smoking in high school or maybe even in college, as a way to rebel against your parents and try to be cool. And maybe it worked. Maybe it made you cool in high school and launched a series of events that got you to second base on your prom night. And now you can't stop. Now you're spending 8 bucks a pack. Now you're told to get the hell out of the bar if you want to light up. Now the value of your property plummets if you smoked inside on a regular basis. Now your insurance rates are higher. Now you can't seem to get up and down the basketball court in those pickup games quite like you used to, and you always feel a bit extra tired. Now your clothes stink and your voice is starting to get raspy.

"Oh, but I have a stressful job, I need it to relax." Riiiiight (you know, you could try working out a few times a week to alleviate that stress, but you're too tired for that, yes?). "Oh, it's ok, I only have a few when I'm drunk." Uh-huh. You were weak then because you started smoking as an all-out effort for short-term social status, and you're weak now because a.) you can't admit to such things, and b.) you can't commit yourself to quitting. I love how these morons in my office, the vast majority of whom blow at their jobs as it is, take 30-45 minutes out of their day to bundle up, go out into the piss cold of January, and slowly kill themselves. So you're that committed to your little habit that you'll go through such measures just to knowingly harm yourself, but somehow finding it in you to kick said habit is "too tough?"

I find it even funnier (and by funnier, I mean terrible) when a woman gets pregnant, valiantly manages to not smoke for 9 months, and then practically has the lighter ready the second that baby is popped out of there. So let me get this straight - you were motivated enough to not harm your yet-to-be-born baby as it grew inside you for 9 months, but not motivated enough to keep from subjecting it to secondhand smoke thereafter?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to start working on opening up a hot chocolate/coffee/donut stand right next to where all the aforementioned Mensa members congregate outside the office. If everyone else is making money off of these shitbirds, then I might as well too.