Most of us stayed up too late last night. We’re a bit blurry-eyed, definitely tired, and either euphoric at come-behind victory or depressed, deflated, disappointed and in denial that the hard-fought contest is over and the outcome is now history.
The kitchen’s a mess. All the food prepared (most of it bad for our diets) was quickly stashed in containers, plastic bags, or stuck on dishes waiting for us to pry it lose and destroy the leftovers or keep munching puppy chow, cheese spread, little smokies, or imbibe on the leftover drinks. Kitchen counters are stacked with cracker boxes, and other “I’ll get to it tomorrow” reminders that we snaked, imbibed, and otherwise forgot about calories and today wonder, “Why did I?” or feel guilty when the remaining new year resolution diet ads come screaming in our ears when we turn on the TV set again this morning. What happened to New Year’s Resolutions?
One thing was clear at our family day. The game held less attention (after all, the replays show us anything significant and the “color experts’ opinions may clash with our own) than the commercials. What we noticed was that many of them were clever, some even made us laugh, and the usual comment was, OK! as if we’d never thought of that idea before and will mull it over later. I noticed, because my moral sense has often been offended by the halftime show, that this year’s was in good taste, was entertaining, and amazing to watch. Roller skates, for heaven’s sake! Usher and his crew of guest-guests who shared the stage did an outstanding job of entertaining. The crowd thought so too, I’m sure.
The refs seemed fair, giving just enough penalties to allow the advertisers the breaks they needed for their interruptions. Do you know the cost to advertisers? 30-second cost: $7 million or $233,333 per-second for the privilege of entertaining, informing, or making you say “Yay” or “Really?” or “seriously,” or to introduce a new product. The network earned some $443 million!
I heard some people say today should be a national holiday, obviously to recover. I’m sure businesses will lose productivity today, talks in the breakrooms and “around the water coolers” will center on the game, and I know of several schools that will have “picture day” interruptions today since few kids or teachers will be able to concentrate fully on their lessons today. I know we left our gathering with the beginning of overtime. We had another half hour drive. We noticed we had the road to ourselves. I can’t help but think how long it would take to empty that stadium and get everyone in attendance either home or to their hotels. I know, it was later for us on the east coast, but think of the time and energy it cost for people to get home, settle down, and try to sleep.
I wonder if Publix and other food chains sold all their football themed cakes and decorated cookies and cupcakes. How many Superbowl paper plates and napkins did they sell?
I noticed, when we finally did get home, whether each team had prepared their after-ad explosion of “Buy hats, T-shirts, and other paraphernalia from the commercial prepared to show after the game. And, I wonder whose task it will be to sweep-vacuum all the confetti off the carefully groomed turf on the battleground field. I wonder how much money was spent on security. I wonder why the President didn’t give his usual message-interview. I wonder how many (collectively) bruises and doctors’ interventions wracked the bodies of the combatants, and I wonder if the kickers’ salaries will grow because of their performances.
One thing I know is, that even if we don’t know a thing about football, and probably wanted to watch other networks, the Super Bowl is an event claiming a lot of attention. I know too that it is a time of contrary-to-my-morals event. Price gouging, sex trafficking, huge expense for tickets (thousands of dollars per seat, and most attendees stood for most of the game!), the cost of hotels, planes, etc., and the money spent on clothing, spa treatments, etc.==astronomical costs to the individuals involved. As a Christian, I wonder how many of the thousands there were in church earilier in the day. Sure, there were fingers pointed to heaven after successful plays, and the “I thank God” statements by team owners and coaches. But, in the whole scope of things, were there saints in the grandstands praying their team would win?
What I do know is that it was quite an entertaining offensive game. Some have been low-scoring (boring)–hey, that rhymes,– and that the powers that be are already planning next year’s. Can anyone change costumes, put on skates, and top that halftime show? The ads are being discussed, voted on, and improvements for next year are already challenging the sharp minds at agencies this morning. And commentators will commentate all day, and probably longer, telling us what to think and what we failed to notice, and next year’s battles are already beginning as coaches, trainers, and owners discuss play after play and write voluminous notes about what worked, and what didn’t from this one. Playbooks will be rewritten, journalists will ponder performances, and Monday morning quarterbacks will express their uninformed opinions ad infinitum, and next year, habits being what they are, we’ll try to reinvent the wheel and do it again. And something will replace this year’s hot honey with chilies. And that’s a wrap.
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