The superbowl is a priori designated the greatest game of the year, but it might or might not be a great game. Many Superbowl contests are not interesting contests. They might or might not be involve the two best teams (often, the two best teams seem to be from the same conference, and it would be impossible for them to play each other in the Superbowl).

What makes the Superbowl important is that lots of people watch it. A huge audience has the power of turning lots of ordinary things into seeming extraordinary things. http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=64

Is there any difference between Americans’ love of (American) football and Europeans’ love of (soccer) football? They’re all just fulfilling a need of people to (1) find a safe outlet for their natural aggression, (2) to associate themselves with strength, power, conquest, or any other attribute that gives the impression that they are somehow “better” than someone else. (An aside; when I lived in Syracuse, NY, the locals’ allegiance to the Giants, Jets, or Bills were perfectly coordinated with the teams’ won/lost records.)

What I find most interesting about Americans’ love of football is that, among the most common choices for this “simulated warfare” [football, soccer/hockey/basketball (essentially the same game), and baseball], football is the most “warlike”. That is to say, real warfare is not continuous. Real warfare is composed of strategic plans and decisions, troop movements, attacks, battles, retreats, regrouping, and formal, coordinated team efforts … much like football. Soccer and its brethren, while definitely requiring team effort, are more continuous and require much more ad hoc cooperation among the team members. Baseball, except for the occasional double-play, is one-on-one.

What does this love of very realistic “simulated warfare” by Americans say about Americans? I’ll leave that for the reader to decide.

As for developing “superb, memorable” ads for the Superbowl; perhaps they blew their wad on the airtime, so there was nothing left for the ad? One wonders if their money might be better spent developing a “superb, memorable” ad and NOT airing it during the Superbowl. On the other hand, nowadays it is very common for the cost of the packaging to exceed the cost of the product.

All that said, I have seen at least a few seconds of every Superbowl, and I’ll see a few seconds of this one, too. Just to say that I did.

I won’t get snippy. (Or at least try and pretend I’m not!)

The two minutes of filler is necessary. The players need to *rest* between plays. Those of us who watch sports and are officionados (the spelling seems to be wrong, so maybe I am not one) understand the subtleties of play calling, substitutions, body language, trash talking, injury gawking, coaching, *cheeeeerleaders*. All of which happen in the “two minutes”. Hey, 6 trillion americans couldn’t be wrong, could they? Grumpy, I will (promise to have Erich) pay your beer tab, if you promise to enjoy the superbowl this sunday. It is the new york football giants against the patriots. Who incidentally are playing for a PERFECT 19-0 record. Be there or be square!

But (I agree) commercials are the enemy, in my opinion. Sometimes there are funny ones, but usually just car adds and mortgage crap and beer.

My main concern is that no more children be exposed to nipples during the half-time show. The FCC levied a half-million dollar fine, so it MUST have been a huge deal, right? I suspect that millions of children are still undergoing therapy as a result of being exposed (sort of) to Janet Jackson’s nipple. See Wikipedia for details (but please don’t allow your children to view the image accompanying the Wikipedia article. Further, don’t ever discuss nipples with your children. And don’t discuss birth control. And don’t allow your children to look at their own bodies in the mirror.

Second, I’d advise anyone interested in the psychology behind the spectacle to also read Mark Tiedemann’s post, Super Bull.

As far as the commercials, I agree with Dan; I’m happy to wait for them to show up on Youtube (apparently, you will also be able to catch those 2008 ads here http://sports.aol.com/nfl/superbowlads ). I can probably do without any and all of those products for the rest of my life, and I’ve sworn off watching most sports spectacles, so I won’t be up to speed on the Super Bowl commercials if you want to discuss them with me . . .

As far the “need” for clever ads, I would note that it is sometimes the case that the most clever (and therefore enjoyable) ads are not good at moving products and services. Sometimes the “boring” ads are more effective as advertising. While looking for an article that supports this point, I stumbled onto this site that contains many clever ads (I don’t know how effective they were).