Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 7
This year’s Super Bowl, with its tsunami of Vegas glitz, hordes of celebrities, eye-searing graphics, overstuffed halftime show, attention-deficit-inducing whiparounds, over-the-top and nonstop analysis, wall-to-wall advertising, and occasional football, drew more American viewers on a single network than any program in the entire history of humanity.
The Super Bowl long ago ceased being “just” a football game. It’s a spectacle, the last shared popular-culture event America will ever enjoy together. You have to enjoy sports live and in the moment, and the Super Bowl is the culmination and pinnacle of sports in this country. With that many eyeballs in one place, the sponsors, celebrities, hustlers, influencers and grifters come down from the hills, everyone wanting a piece of your sweet, precious attention. That’s why Super Bowl ads cost a reported $7 million for a 30-second spot this year, why they sell out every year, and why that cost is never, ever coming down.
Super Bowl week is now a nonstop barrage of hype and blather, a sonic boom of promotion, speculation and look-at-me attempted virality that has reduced the players themselves to exhibits in a zoo. On Super Bowl Sunday itself, pregame shows started up at 9 a.m. ET for a 6:30 p.m.
The NFL has split many of its broadcasts into “standard” and “ManningCast” versions, much like college football’s championship games often include “coach speak” and stats-heavy options. But the NFL isn’t going to want to divide its audience; keeping everyone on the same channel ensures the widest possible audience for all those pricey Dunkin’, E*Trade and M&M’s ads.
Source: Yahoo Sports
