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Posted by on Feb 1, 2015 in Blog, Sports Betting | 1 comment

Has the Super Bowl Finally Jumped the Shark?

 

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An estimated 110 million Americans watched the Super Bowl last year. But wait.  That number can’t possibly be correct, can it?  Given the U.S. population is currently 316 million, wouldn’t that mean 206 million other Americans didn’t watch the game?  If television ratings are anywhere close to being accurate, nearly two-thirds of the American population doesn’t watch the Super Bowl.

 

I wonder.  Who are these people?  Babies?  Little girls playing with dolls?  Immigrants?  The senile?  The criminally insane?  Hospital patients stuck in a coma?  Who the fuck doesn’t watch the Super Bowl?  Except for the very young, the very old, and the mentally deranged — everyone watches the biggest sporting event of the year.  Right?

That’s what I used to think.

Now, I’m convinced those who don’t tune in and who’ve dropped out — the millions who don’t give a shit about pro football — might not be stupid or insane, after all.  Maybe they’re just ahead of the rest of us.  Consider what today’s annual championship game has sadly become, a temporary carnival stage for lip-synching entertainers, nauseating dance routines, and halftime fireworks.  Sixty minutes of football gets stretched into a patience-testing nearly five hours, the (in)action constantly being interrupted by a ceaseless parade of product pimping.  Let’s face it, our real national pastime has turned into a gigantic whorehouse of crass commercialism, hopelessly overshadowing a game already burdened with ridiculous rules, judgment calls, inconsistent officiating, a never-ending stream of controversies taking place both on and off the field– all within a gilded kingdom overseen by a bunch of insatiably greedy billionaires who want even more.

Then, there’s the personal insult levied at the millions like me who gamble on these games.  Consider the NFL’s laughably hypocritical finger waving at so many of us who watch week-to-week with such unwavering devotion.  League officials continue to deny the primary reason why many so Americans are infatuated with football and tune into its games over 21 straight weeks (many of them blowouts and mismatches).  They even file lawsuits to stop us.  Hey, we’re willing to pay $249 a season for the NFL Sunday Ticket on Direct TV or fork over an obscene $175 a seat ticket price for one simple reason which is this…. we like to gamble on the outcome of games.

Gasp!  The horror.

A few days ago, Commissioner Roger Goodell held his annual “State of the NFL” address in front of members of the media.  Goodell is the team owners’ golden boy, their highly-paid flunky, a $44-million-a-year shill hired to protect the league shield at all costs and deflect the rising tide of criticism of rules and policies.  Goodell stood up there in front of the microphone and with a straight face admitted, “it’s been a challenging year.”  A challenging year?  That might be the understatement of the decade.

From the Ray Rice affair early on to the Adrian Peterson suspension, to the NFL’s disgraceful handling of so many veterans’ physical problems, to the league’s ongoing denial that the violent nature of this game causes brain injuries to far more players than previously thought, Goodell hasn’t just been sitting in the hot seat.  He’s been submerged in a deep fryer.  Everything he said seemed half-baked, to be taken with a grain of salt.

However, to be fair, Goodell isn’t the true evil that is the NFL.  That badge of disreputable dishonor goes to the 32 team owners, the fat cats each making a fortune, who hold host cities and taxpayers hostage, wanting everything for free — from brand new stadiums every 25 years or so to improved infrastructure for training facilities which threaten to bankrupt many local treasuries — while they themselves continue to camp around what’s become a virtual printing press making millions, all while the value of each NFL franchise continues to skyrocket.  Twenty-five of the 32 league teams are now worth in excess of a billion dollars.

Never mind that the league’s constant meddling has made many of these games virtually unwatchable.  Games are burdened with stupid rules changes favoring offenses and more scoring, which has resulted in the constant distraction of wondering if and when officials will call pass interference, illegal contact, or defensive holding after almost every pass play.  Drives often conclude with fake touchdowns, offenses the beneficiary of invisible planes around end zones, aided by booth replays.  It’s pouring gasoline on an already raging fire, designed to steadily increase scoring, which in turn ignites the frenzy of Fantasy Football addicts, which the NFL and ESPN are about to soon monopolize.  How’s that for a grand conspiracy?  38-31 games are much better for business than 17-13 defensive struggles, right?  It’s become almost impossible to play pass defense in the NFL anymore.

Consider that three of this year’s playoff games were marred by bad officiating and even more controversy, including the unfathomable official league policy which actually allows teams to supply the game balls.  What?  Seriously?  Is anyone surprised that something like this would happen, that the New England Patriots probably cheated?  How and why doesn’t the NFL supply all game equipment in order to maintain consistency and protect integrity?  One must now wonder:  How many other games took place with deflated footballs, which went undetected?  It’s not just the fact the AFC Championship game was compromised.  It’s that the richest and most powerful sports league in history would even subject itself to this happening.

To be clear, and in spite of themselves, there’s still far more that’s great about pro football than is wrong with the game and the league.  The rich traditions, league-wide parity between teams, national interest in every game —  these things will continue to maintain the NFL and the Super Bowl as a sporting and entertainment juggernaut.  Nothing will stop today’s big game from attracting one of the largest television audiences in history.  After all, nine out of ten of the biggest televised events of all time were Super Bowl games.

That said, sharks are swimming in the waters of discontent.  We’re now circling.  And, we’re not happy.  The owners can only squeeze us for so much.  Advertisers can only try and sell us a finite amount of products we don’t need before we begin to look elsewhere for amusement.  Two weeks of pregame hype can only go so far as the on-the-field product remains fair and honest, without the intrusiveness of stupid rules and yellow flags errantly tossed by part-time referees in their mid-50s who do things like sell insurance a majority of their calendar year.

Many of us are no longer giving pro football the benefit of forward progress.  If the NFL and the Super Bowl haven’t jumped the shark just yet, the ramp is clearly approaching.

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1 Comment

  1. Go Seahawks!!! From the quantum of the seas heading to our poker cruise tomorrow we never miss a blog!!!

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