Super Sell Out

Last night's Super Bowl XLV was an exciting game in which the Green Bay Packers, defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25. Everybody should know that because the game was watched by 111 million people, but I decided to restate it because if you do a google search for “Super Bowl,” the top results include stories about; The fans who lost their seats, “Why were the Super Bowl Commercials Extra- Violent this Year,” Super Bowl Social Media Marketing, “Groupon CEO's Non-Apology Letter for Super Bowl Ad,” Christina Aguilera's missed lyrics during the National Anthem, another article about commercials, an article about the half-time show, an article about the episode of Glee following the show, you get the picture. I went through several pages before giving up without finding a single writeup about the game, and very few articles relating to gameplay at all. And herein lies the problem. I love sports. I am an American. The Super Bowl is supposed to be the greatest event in American Sports. To top it all off, I'm a Steelers fan. While football isn't my favorite sport, I still should have been in a level of sports heaven near where I was when my beloved Celtics were in the NBA Finals last summer (before the game that will never be mentioned on this blog), but I wasn't.

Let's backtrack to before the game. This was a matchup between the NFL's two most storied franchises. Aaron Rodgers was the quarterback who had replaced Brett Favre and saved Green Bay, Ben Roethlisberger was rebounding from a shaky off-season looking to win his third Super Bowl. There were plenty of stories for the media to cover, more than in most years. So why was such a large part of the coverage in the week leading up to this game on “Ben Roethlisberger going out to a piano bar not being a story” (They sure covered it like a story!), the weather in Dallas (The game was in a dome for crying out loud!), who was included in the Green Bay team photo and more? Easy. The Super Bowl has sold out. And who can blame it? If sports fans are going to watch it why wouldn't they show it. But unfortunately, with all this hype and advertising and media, its easy to lose sight of the game itself. This year's game was very exciting too. Green Bay jumping out to a large early lead, the Steelers coming back and having a chance to win on the final drive and complete the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. Classic. You don't need $2 million commercials, the Black Eyed Peas, Usher and Slash, Christina Aguilera, and a bunch of stories hardly relating to sports to make this a great game. This is America's most popular sport, most popular league and biggest game. I understand that the opportunity to make money is there and will almost always be taken when it is, but the Super Bowl is a game, not a giant commercial and the NFL should not turn its back on the glory of the game.