For over 100 years, the Super Bowl has been the pinnacle game in Western sports entertainment – excluding the World Cup finals, which occur only once every four years. While this assertion remains entirely true today – to the die-hard fan (myself), the big game lacks many qualities that make every other (playoff) game before it such a joy to watch. That is, the Super Bowl lacks – in reality – is not so super.
Having grown up watching football – and just about every other sport as well – I have an informed opinion on the state of sports and (modestly) have built somewhat of an encyclopedic memory of just about every major sporting event over the past decade. It is essential to keep this information in mind when evaluating the logic of my argument – because while I am not going to divulge into a process of heavy academia and outside sources, the opinion upon which my thoughts are constructed is not lacking in general knowledge!
When I was a young boy, the Super Bowl was different – yes, it had the glitz and the glam, but the NFL was not the global superpower that it is today – and consequently, it did not operate like the same one either. When watching the Super Bowl, you could look forward to fun, creative ads, a passionate atmosphere, and a halftime show boiling with cultural relevance. Today, however, none of these qualities remain. The ad cycles are dominated by big pharma, the massive growth in popularity has priced out the die-hard fan, and the halftime shows are just about guaranteed to stink! Where there was a crowd filled with thousands of die-hard fans – witness Michael Jackson at the Rose Bowl or Prince’s iconic performance of Purple Rain in Miami – we now have crowds dominated by a majority of casual fans – if they are even fans at all – constituting much of corporate America and bearing witness to shows from the likes of Usher (in Las Vegas – a city which previously never had a team) or The Weeknd in Tampa Bay. These changes in scenery have laid grounds for an increasingly boring spectacle (for the long-time fan) and severely draw away from what should be the most significant, profound football experience of the year. Thus, between the atmosphere of the game, the increasingly economically elite demographic of fans, and the at home experience on TV – todays Super Bowls have lost so much of what made them “The Big Game” so many years ago.
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