I am not an avid sports enthusiast though in my younger years, I have, for one time, followed the PBA (Philippine Basketball Association) games, having Crispa as my favorite team and Bogs Adornado my hero of a player. Now, that is a give away on my age. LOL!
My not being a sports buff however does not preclude me from engaging in current discussions about big, national and global sports event. And just last night, I happened to be chatting with Louie, an online friend, who, incidentally, has been an ardent reader of this blog from the time it was launched a year ago, about the just concluded Super Bowl. As this reader kept track of this blog regularly, he became interested in contributing his own articles (see footnotes) which I was just too happy to accomodate, as I have been encouraging interested readers to submit their contributions here.
Louie is a big football fan. And so it was that on the staging of the Super Bowl last Sunday night (Monday morning, Philippine time), he said he was glued to his seat to the end of the game. He roots for the Chicago Bears, by the way.
Aside from the game, Louie has more things going in his mind about the game. And he says all these in the following piece.
Super Bowl…. Super Hype? contributed by Louie Tacker
Well, it’s over – the hype, the parties and the hoopla. Work on this Monday morning in America, as I write this, is at a very low production rate as there are many aching heads and bellies in the offices.
I have been a football fan since I was seven…forty one years of watching a game progress from its infant stage to now a world event. I have always been a Chicago Bear fan all these years. Why? I don’t know. I was born and raised in New York, but I root for a football team from Chicago. I feel bad for their loss but I accept it, for two reasons: 1) Because there are 24 teams that did not get this far; and 2) As I have gotten older, I realize it’s only a game and all the players are winners. They are all very well paid for seven months work and now, win or lose – they start their long vacation with plenty of money. LOL ! So I tell all my fellow Bear fans out there – relax, it’s only a game.
The real winners here are the league, the TV networks and the companies that could afford to spend millions per minute to have their names splashed across the world in what has turned out to be so much more than a football game. The game, actually, has become secondary. People who have no idea what a football even looks like went to the event to go out to bars. The whole thing has really become more of a party than sports event and it is said that there are more parties on Super Bowl day than on New Year’s eve. Well, there is even talk of making it a national holiday here in America.
I don’t see at present if the game can still possibly live up to the expectations now. Starting about 15 years ago, the league set out to make this day more about the EVENT, not the GAME. And they have succeeded. To the pure football fan, it’s all an annoyance. I don’t want the long pre-game show at all. I don’t need any entertainment during the long half time. It ruins the flow of the game. They take two weeks between the game, all just to build up the HYPE. The best seats are filled with celebrities, not the average fan who built this league over the years. The poor working slob who busts his or her way everyday and goes to the regular season games, pays the huge price of tickets. But when the BIG GAME comes, they get shut out so the ‘CELEBRITIES’, who, most don’t even care about football, can be SEEN at the BIG EVENT, not the BIG GAME.
Yes, the league has sold out the ‘little guy’. Like in so many other things – in sports or in corporate world – the guy who creates and builds the corporation or the league as the case may be, gets shut out, pushed aside for the big money. The sad fact screams out – the SUPER BOWL has now become everything but the game. The game can never live up to the HYPE anymore. In fact, the build up is so huge that it’s almost impossible now for the game to resurface again because it has already been buried under the HYPE.
So on this Monday morning after the EVENT, the average guy holds his head in his hands from all that partying last night, while the players and people who control the league count their cash. On the positive side however, side bars, clubs, foodstroes and many small businesses benefit extremely well. It is good also for the economy all over the country and the city which hosts the game takes in over a billion dollars in business.
The game went from a sporting event to a national event to a now World Event, complete with star-studded entertainment at half time. To the true football fan however, the best games are the two championship games two weeks prior, because the Super Bowl, the game itself can never anymore surface above the HYPE.
Louie Tacker’s previous contributions:
‘Internetting’
On global warmingForest fires, natural calamities and balance of nature
Hi tita Rhoda! o ha nakiki-tita lang po hahahaha
Anyway yung friend ko sa States…he was talking to be about the superbowl last Saturday and I was like “what’s that? an eating contest?” hehehe such an idiot!
By the way I’ll link you pala..hope you don’t mind
[...] Super Bowl?Super Hype? And just last night, I happened to be chatting with Louie, an online friend, who, incidentally, has been an ardent reader of this blog from the time it was launched a year ago, about the just concluded Super Bowl. … [...]
Verns, eating contest! Hahaha! Marami naman talaga dito sa atin ang hindi familiar sa super bowl na ito e. Hehe. Hindi ko lang naman kasi matanggihan itong reader ko na gustong isulat ang super bowl. Anyway, sige, baka sakaling makapuntos tong blog ko sa google search kasi nasa top search super bowl. o di ba? LOL!
Yup, link me anytime. I’ll link you too. thanks!
Sounds funny, but I love football too. Very rare for a girl to like football … Hehe.
Anyway, sports is good!
(:
Wow, Kyels! I wish I could, too! But I’m not really a sports buff.
Super bowl, soup sipping contest ba yan? sorry di ko po alam e..
pero mukhang masarap pumunta sa event na yan.
Dimaks, hehehe. Pareho kayo ni Verns.
I remember me having a boo boo with a customer I had the other day. He asked me from where I was. Knowing that sometimes people can be rascist, I said I was in our main office in Indiana.
He then went about ranting and yapping about him being from Chicago and how his team will kick the ass of “my team” and how his coach and “my coach” were classmates and team mates from way back, yadda yadda yadda.
Shempre, nakatunganga ako at walang masabi, kasi no time to watch ESPN. Buti na lang I’m familiar with the teams and all.
Yabang naman niya. Ayan tuloy, natalo ang Chicago Bears niya. LOL!
Prab, sa States ka ba nag- high school?
My cousin Leo played with Jaworski in the PBA. But I never saw him play, though, cause I was already in the States at that time.
Really, Eric? Were you into sports in the States too?
Hello Rhodora
the only thing I remember about super bowl is the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” incident- to the embarassment of Justine Timberlake, or am I wrong?? It’s also shown here, sadly about 1 in the morning in analog tv.
Nope, not in the States. Sa Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There was this Philippine School there.
It was estimated that during the half-time break, about 93 million TV viewers all over the world would have stepped out for their bio break
The TV ad fees were equally astronomical – something like $80,000 per second 
Pining, I don’t know with Janet Jackson, but she seems to be having ‘habitual’ wardrobe malfunction. Hehehe. There was a time also, in one of her concerts, her top was too revealing. Sa kagagalaw niya, muntik nang tumambad ang buong hinaharap. Sus!
Oh, I see, Prab. Must be some scholarship, huh! Talino mo talaga.
Wow, BW! Super Bowl – super money raker!
I’m not a sports fan either. My middle son is, and he already gets tired of my asking him about sports when he is watching it on TV. I only watch the halftime shows of SuperBowl. And yeah, I remember very well the Janet Jackson incident.
Niceheart, ganyan din ang scenario dito sa amin. When my hubby and son are watching games on TV, I keep asking, o ano na? What’s happening na? And they shoo me away to my daughter’s room! LOL!
I wish may scholarship, but no. My Dad works with an insurance firm sa Riyadh, and he brought us there when I was in high school. Now they’re still there and only go for a month’s worth of vacation here when it’s vacation time at my siblings’ school.
di rin ako mahilig sa sport pero nanonood din ako ng basketball, naalala ko tuloy ang Toyota team at mga basketbolista tulad nila Atoy Co at Freddie Web
Cruise, does that mean we are contemporaries?
Hi, Ray! Thanks for paying my site a visit. Ako din, di mahilig sa sports.
Oh, yeah, I called you son. Imply something? Wala naman, ganyan talaga ako, very motherly.
Do visit again!