Stick And Ball

I admit to not being a fan of stick and ball sports.  I can watch them, as I have the essential knowledge of how most are played, although I do admit scoring in Cricket does perplex me.

I have played some of the more popular ones at some time in my life, including, ice hockey, street hockey, North American football, European football, rugby, baseball and softball.  I have taken up arms and played lacrosse twice, table tennis, lawn tennis, badminton, squash, basketball, curling and even was a member of the team that held the record for the longest single continuous (1974, 110 hours) volleyball game. 

I have even enjoyed golf from time to time. 

So, my sports credentials do cover a reasonable range of the leagued-up, televised, endorsement-fuelled recreations that feature good motor skills, physical endurance, strategy and team dynamics.  The Super Bowl is none of these. 

Leaving the hype aside, American football has stopped being important to anyone except sports bettors.  The game seems to be tertiary to the show.  Same with ice hockey, you go to see a bloody bare-knuckles fight by a bunch of guys on a slippery surface, when, pow, they start playing hockey?  Talk about buzz-kill.

At the current rate of hype, the Super Bowl will be played in a park near Tupelo Mississippi and the television coverage will occasionally pop out to see the game.  The rest of the five hour broadcast will be in a huge stadium in Anaheim, featuring Celine Dion, Brittney Spears, Maya Anjelou and Brad Pitt singing the National Anthem. 

There will be fireworks, 12-storey inflatable Flintstones characters, massed marching bands creating patterns on the field, commercials ranging from Ozzy and Fozzy for long distance, to the Budweiser Clydesdales standing on their back legs in a bar, trying to hustle some mares. 

There will be a flypast of military jets and everyone will be asked to hold their seat cushion over their head to form an American Flag for the Service Men and Women, while the Goodyear blimp takes a picture of it and sends it by satellite to those in Kandahar.

There will be at least one shirtless, morbidly obese man, painted blue with the logo of one of the teams on his chest and face.  Naturally, there will be the “John 3:16” guy there as well as the obligatory “Hi Mom” sign waver with his friend the Big Foam Finger Fellow.

After two hours or so of this, the networks will cut away to the actual game in Tupelo, where the score is still 3-3 after one of the players fell down and skinned his knee.  An opposing player had to go home because he got a nosebleed and its time for his ADHD medication.  Oh, and Mom is making chicken tonight, so I don’t want to miss dinner, besides, the street lights are coming on, so its time to go home.

Everyone will leave sated and satisfied that they had seen the best Super Bowl ever, talking over the commercials, the singers, dancers, fireworks and marching band hijinks for the next week.  Much money will change hands as office pools and other bettors pay up, or pay off, or weasel out. 

In other words, its not the game, it is the hype that makes the Super Bowl what it thinks it is.  At its core, the game is immaterial to all but the players.  The rest of it is a parade float to give a child’s game the status the networks demand.  Reality is we’re watching a gigantic sideshow without going into the big tent.