Fortieth Super Bowl Fails to Impress

The Super Bowl and the events around Super Bowl Sunday have become an American secular holiday. Some have even suggested making the day after the game a holiday so that football fans can recover from the excesses. If they are to convince the rest of the country, though, the overall quality of the game and festivities will have to improve. Pittsburgh 21, Seattle 10, and who really cares about the rest?

The game itself was entertaining but hardly one for the ages. As with most Super Bowl games, this was not a prime example of American football played at its highest level. Both teams suffered from sloppiness more than once, and the officials were little better. That said, unlike a great many final games, this could have gone either way until the middle of the fourth quarter. That the Steelers won is gratifying to those who appreciate the triumph of the underdog against all adversity, while the loss Seattle suffered was a set back to the team’s overall progress toward greatness and not a soul shattering event.

The broadcast on ABC was also workmanlike and hardly a stunner. Al Michaels and John Madden are as good a broadcast team as football has ever seen, and one of the worst kept secrets in sports journalism is their reunion on NBC next year. Mr. Madden, former coach with the Raiders, knows the game backward and forward, while Mr. Michaels has the voice of authority sound that Mr. Cronkite gave to CBS News all those years ago. However, the rest of the ABC broadcast team, talented though they are, proved unnecessary. A football game does not require reporters from the sideline as if they were the foreign correspondent talking to the anchor back in New York. The overkill in sports broadcasting these days is horrific.

The musical support was a hot topic this year. While the Rolling Stones of London, England, provided the halftime entertainment, the game was in Detroit, home of Motown. The local powers that be wanted the NFL to give that brand more attention. The NFL, however, said, “it’s our party, and we’ve been after the Stones for ages. They’ve agreed and that’s that.” Motown got the pre-game slot (which isn’t as visible) and filled it with Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Joss Stone and India Arie. Sir Mick and the lads were showing their age at halftime, and played a tune or two that could have been at Super Bowl I. However, there was not “wardrobe malfunction” – which wouldn’t have mattered since no one wants to see Keith Richards’ breasts. All the same, the censors at the network dropped some lyrics to “Start Me Up” and “Rough Justice” because the words were too risqué. No one seemed to notice, though, that without Motown, the Stones would have to have found another sound from which to steal.

Then, there is the advertising. The Super Bowl commercials are supposed to be the high point of the advertisers’ art, and this year, they failed to impress. Fed Ex and Sprint got some positive reviews, while every American car ad was actually worse than every American car. What is truly depressing is the caliber of American advertising in general. If this rather weak pack of ads was the best they can do, Madison Avenue should try outsourcing ads to somewhere else. Not long ago, Clear Channel told its advertisers their work was so bad it was lowering ratings – if this was the best US advertisers could do, one can see why.

Now, junk sports season begins; the dreadful time between the Super Bowl and the NCAA basketball tournament and baseball’s opening day. Mercifully, there will be Winter Olympics from Turin, Italy (which NBC will insist on calling “Torino,” while still calling the capital of Russia Moscow not Moskva, Paris will have the “s” pronounced, and Poland’s largest city will not be pronounced “Warszawa.” Pretentiousness only goes so far it seems). One can only hope the curling prevents the ice dancers from hogging all the TV time and that at some point a non-American athlete gets to be on camera.


© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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