Monday, February 3, 2020

Thoughts on Superbowl Sunday

Yesterday afternoon:

(Don is outside working on a fencing project.)

Me: "When is Superbowl Sunday? Is it today?"

Older Daughter (types a question into her computer): "Yes, it's today. And the players are..."

Me: "Oh, I don't care about that."


True story: Back in 1989 when Don and I were dating, he lived around the corner from me in a college town where bicycles were more common than cars. One day I hopped on my bike and rode around the corner to see him. I found him on his front lawn, his bicycle upended in front of him, doing some repairs on it.

"Why aren't you in watching the game?" I asked. "Today is Superbowl Sunday."

"Well..." He looked up from his bike. "I'm not really that into football."

"Hmmmmm," I distinctly remember thinking. "This is someone I could get serious about."

The rest is history.

11 comments:

  1. I can't tell you much about football. I'll watch a game here and there. What I CAN tell you is that in the Super Bowl, the commercials are as much a part of the viewer experience as the game itself... At least they were, until this year. The usual humor associated with the commercials was replaced by politically correct, "social justice" drivel. What these ads told me is that "We can't poke fun at anything because we MIGHT offend SOMEONE..." These people wasted A LOT OF MONEY for nothing.

    ...And the Bloomberg anti-gun campaign ad? It got lost in all the PC, SJW noise... Good for him!

    Other than that, the '9ers lost, the Chiefs won. Nothing more to see here, folks...

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  2. Some years ago the team from my city was in the Super Bowl (they won that year). Not really even being aware of that I went downtown to go to a specific shop for something. I found myself at a really major intersection that is usually VERY busy 24 hours a day, every day.

    For a bit I was confused. It looked like I was in the movie The Omega Man. I was the only car waiting for the light at that intersection. Only a few cars were moving on the streets. When I got to the shop there were only about 10 people inside instead of the 60 one might expect to see on a Sunday.

    Then I heard they were playing the sound from the game over their PA system. Denver was winning. Even most of the few people there had one ear cocked to the play-by-play while they shopped. I learned after that, to do my shopping during games and have a lot of stores to myself.

    The last time Denver went to the playoffs I tried this at the grocery store but it was packed, as normal on a week-end day. I realized most of the people were non-white, ethnically not US native. I thought this was quite funny. American football was not their game of choice. Instead, the streets and stores were very empty during the World Soccer Tournament. Denver seems to have become the destination of a lot of immigrants.

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    1. Hubby and I "accidentally" discovered the same phenomenon years ago while Costco shopping on a Superbowl Sunday. Since then, we make it a point to knock out some type of shopping-sans-crowds in celebration of the rest of the country staying home. Yay! :)

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  3. My interest in all "sports" ended when the fellows I watched all grew up and moved on.

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  4. For years we would take a nice "Sunday Drive" when the Super Bowl was on TeeVee and those interested sat glued to their sets.
    The roads were delightfully empty.
    Now with a larger immigrant population, which doesn't care a fiddle or a fig about football, the empty roads phenomenon is a pleasant memory here in Silicon Gulch.

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  5. Football is an excellent sport for boys. I played in grade school. My brother excelled in high school. We enjoy watching college games today.

    Women either destroy, lower the standards, lower the pay, or lower the enjoyment of virtually every predominately male activity that they butt into. Look no further than the military, law enforcement, fire departments, engineering, etc. The NFL is no exception. Add a heavy dash of political correctness and stick a fork in it.

    If I could just watch the Super Bowl game I would. I watched last Sunday for 10 minutes up to and including the coin toss. Every segment and commercial represented the values that I reject. Watching the militaristic nationalism rising to a fever pitch was truly frightening. How did we become so blood thirsty? I’m sorry but this old coot stands up for Christ, not Lee Greenwood.

    Montana Guy

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    1. This fellow from Montana said it much better than me.
      https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/gary-d-barnett/is-the-super-bowl-event-a-reflection-of-todays-american-values/

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  6. The thing about the Super Bowl is that it doesn't really select the best team, and it's just a bit of pageantry and corporate sponsorship pretending that it's a championship game.

    English Premier League does this right, but it only has twenty teams in it. They solve the problem of having fewer winning teams in Premier League by relegating them to the Championship league.

    The twenty teams in the Premier League play in a double round-robin competition, and the best team is the team that wins by the numbers.

    No need for a Super Bowl at all.

    Below Championship is League One, then League Two, and then the National Leagues. Improving teams get promoted, while crap teams get relegated.

    And so your town can have its own football club, or even several of varying levels of competence.

    There's even a football club for the Metropolitan Police. Come to think of it, they usually suck even more than the football club from my old hometown. :-)

    But the idea that the NFL should include every team that's part of American football, not just the ones who manage to be competent, all because they've bought some franchise?

    I'd never seen such leveller nonsense before in sport in my life.

    Will the NFL start handing out participation trophies in the next few years? :-)

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  7. I was raised in a watching sports family.
    My father had two tv's to watch two different games at the same time, side by side. He didn't like the announcer for one of the games, so he had his radio going with a better announcer. On Thanksgiving Day, my sweet sister's beautiful table filled with all the foods you can imagine, and my family filled their plates and left to watch a basket ball game. Ugh!! When I found out my husband didn't watch sports, I knew he was the one.
    andy

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  8. Always considered North American foot ball a waste of oxygen..

    To us the Super Bowl is the one Sweetie makes bread dough in...

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