Sports Saturday: The Big Game

I've never quite understood why commercials can't use the words "Super Bowl." I mean, I understand the fact that the NFL doesn't want people benefiting from their hard work and terminology, but not letting people use those specific words? Really? Is that helping? Who wins in that scenario? I'm off topic already.

Today is the "big game" itself. The two teams that have routinely been the best all year, that collectively started 27-0, will finally face off to see who will be the NFL Champion. For some reason though, I'm much less excited about the game this year than I have in years past. Well, I think I am at least. I can't remember the last Super Bowl that was really excited about beyond the Bucs and Raiders back in 2003, for obvious reasons. Last year, Meghan and I watched a bit of game through a rather obstructed view at the Texas Roadhouse in Wesley Chapel. We could tell that it was an incredible game, but that was only because the Steeler fans surrounding the bar were hooping and hollering when Harrison ran that ball back all the way for the touchdown. I caught a little bit more once we got home and she was in bed, but it wasn't something I was particularly focused on.

Most years, we miss the game entirely since we spend Meghan's birthday weekend elsewhere and end up driving back right about the time that the game starts. For two years in a row, though, we'll actually be home the entire weekend, and we'll have the option of watching it when it finally comes around. Still, it's not like it's something that I've been biting my nails about to see. In fact, I don't know a whole lot of people that are jazzed about watching it, even though we're getting the two best teams from the regular season, you have a QB in Peyton Manning gunning for all-time greatness, a city in New Orleans that hangs on their football team's every move, and all other kinds of drama thrown into the mix. For whatever reason, it's just kind of... meh.

One sports talk show earlier this week mentioned that the reason might be because we as a nation aren't susceptible to hype anymore. With the constant barrage of the national media and all the different outlets that we have available to us (TV, radio, internet, newspapers, twitter, facebook, podcasts), we've reached a saturation point where it's hard to really get excited about anything at all, much less a football game. It's just another milestone, another passing moment that's supposed to be important. Most Super Bowls are rarely about the games themselves, and this one is no exception.

You have the commercial controversies: GoDaddy.com getting their ad pulled and Tim Tebow getting his endorsed. You have the NFL collective bargaining agreement threatening to stop the country's most popular professional sport. You have several Hall of Fame players getting arrested and having allegations brought their way the week of the game. You have yet another "I can't believe they still exist" band (The Who, following in the tradition of Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, U2, etc.) playing the halftime show since the league and the TV networks are still playing it as safe as humanly possible after the wardrobe malfunction of Super Bowl XXXVIII. It's almost laughable. You don't get this with the World Series, the NBA Finals, or the Stanley Cup. Only the Super Bowl... Only the "big game."

Of course, I'll watch it. Meghan will placate me for a while and watch it too, but I'm sure she'll end up in another room catching something on Bravo that's in marathon mode to capture all the viewers who couldn't care less about sports. (Update: in between writing that sentence and helping her decorate the house a bit, she informed me that there is, indeed, a Jersey Shore marathon on tonight; mystery solved.) She's usually pretty nice about letting me watch things that I deem important, regardless of whether I have any vested interest in it or not. That's this situation to a "t." I couldn't care less about the Colts or the Saints. I really don't care that much about this year's Super Bowl. I just know that, when tomorrow comes and everyone's asking, "Did you see? Did you see?!" ...I want to have seen it. That's right, I'm watching the game because everyone else is. I'm swimming downstream. I'm playing into the corporate fat cats' hands. And you know what? I'm OK with it.