The Super Bowl: All American - All Excess!

by Richard L. Weaver II

“It’s a spectacle of gross and glorious excess that glitters with undeliverable promise,” writes Phil Reisman at LoHud.com, in an essay entitled, “Reisman ponders the meaning of the Super Bowl.” Reisman continues, “The Super Bowl burns with promise and quickly fizzles out, and that is a distinctly American phenomenon. Oddly, it is even a beautiful thing.”

The spectacle of gross and glorious excess of the game itself barely exceeds the hype and pre-game brouhaha. Look at the pre-game advertising, the sports writers’ predictions, the betting (more on that in a moment), the food preparation, and all the news outlets worldwide flocking to the venue to report the game’s happenings. It has been reported that one quarter of the tickets for the 2009 Super Bowl will be priced at $1,000.00 each. That’s glorious excess!

You’ve got to love it! There is nothing like it in the world. As Gail Leino writes in her essay, at ezinearticles.com, “Superbowl Sunday Party,” “This is the great American tradition of celebrating the greatness of football!” Robert Paul Reyes, writing for the American Chronicle, January 31, 2006, in an essay entitled, “The wretched excess of the Super Bowl,” writes, “The Super Bowl transcends sports, it is a celebration of American power. It’s an ‘in your face’ glorification of American supremacy.”

Reyes, in the essay just referred to about its wretched excess, says, “Anything that happens during the Super Bowl is magnified beyond comprehension.”

The Super Bowl represents excess in the extreme. It is “the most-watched U.S. television broadcast of the year, and has become likened to a de facto U.S. national holiday,” it says at Wikipedia. That alone doesn’t merit “excess” status, but, according to Wikipedia, “Super Bowl Sunday is the second-largest U.S. food consumption day, following Thanksgiving.” For some, the Super Bowl is dedicated to food and drink. That's excess.

Last year’s (2008) upset victory by the New York Giants over the New England Patriots was watched by a record 97.5 million Americans — “marking the biggest TV audience in Super Bowl history and the second most-watched U.S. telecast ever,” according to Paul Thomasch writing for the New York Times. Thomasch says, “The number of viewers watching the National Football League championship game was surpassed only by the 106 million who saw the series finale of “M*A*S*H” in February 1983, according to data issued ... by Nielsen Media Research.”

Let’s examine further excesses. Advertisers for the 2007 game paid an average of $2.7 million for a 30-second spot. Some people watch the game just to see the commercials. The advertisements are truly the subject of anticipation and speculation. Super Bowl commercials received in excess of 15 million additional views online. In the past 20 years, Super Bowl ads have translated into $1.84 billion of network sales from over 200 different advertisers, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

According to TNS MI (via MarketingCharts), the top five Super Bowl advertisers of the past 20 years (1988-2007) have spent $659 million on advertising during the game. This accounts for 36 percent of total advertising dollars spent in the game. Anheuser Busch and Pepsico have appeared in every game during this period, and they lead the pack. General Motors, Time Warner, and Walt Disney are next.

There is a related excess as well. The Super Bowl seems to be the American holiday of consumerism. The motto is “buy, buy, buy, and we’ll try to sell you more.” According to “The Super Bowl, Economics, and You,” “Sales of TVs spike around the Super Bowl.” From The New Mexico Business Weekly (January 29, 2008) , in an essay entitled, “Super Bowl viewers will spend $10B on TVs furniture,” it says, “Consumers plan to nearly double what they spent last year on televisions and furniture in anticipation of the big day....Consumers plan to buy nearly 4 million televisions....Nearly 2 million pieces of furniture will be sold....158 million people ... [will] spend an average of $59.90 on related merchandise, making expected total spending around $9.5 billion.”

Even some of the ancillary Super Bowl items reveal excess. For example, the cost of Super Bowl Rings. The league pays for up to 150 rings at $5,000 per ring (plus adjustments for increases in gold and diamonds). That’s $750,000.00-plus, just for the rings. Also, the league pays for 150 pieces of jewelry for the losing team as well, and these pieces cost about half the price set for the Super Bowl ring — another $375,000.00. That’s over a million dollars just for Super Bowl jewelry.

Richard Sandomir, in his essay, “Super Bowl Excess for a Sturdy Coffee Table,” discusses yet another excess. His essay is printed in the New York Times, January 17, 2006. Sandomir writes that the book that chronicles the history of the Super Bowl will weigh 85 pounds, contain nearly 2,000 images (out of two million examined), and 500,000 words. The cost of the book is $4,000.00 for the first 19,600 copies and $25,000 for the 400 M.V.P. autographed copies. How big is the book? It measures nearly two feet long on all sides, and it is six inches thick. That’s excess!

Most people know about the excess of gambling. At Wikianswers.com, it states that, “Over 10 billion dollars is predicted to be risked on Super Bowl XLII by more than 200 million people around the world. The Super Bowl is the biggest one-day sports betting event of every year.” At Bookmaker.com, it says, “Super Bowl betting records prove that this activity is a huge moneymaking deal both for sportsbooks and sports bettors all around the world. And now, betting on the Super Bowl can be done with a wide variety of options, including office pools, proposition bets, handicapping contests and many more.”

During the game, of course, the excess continues. It is covered by a minimum of 36 cameras and 60 microphones, and there are over 3,000 credited reporters working at the game. Sandomir calls the Super Bowl “an orgiastic eruption of football, cholesterol, [and] sexagenarian rock stars.” At Wikipedia, there is an entry entitled, “Super Bowl halftime shows, which states, “In the United States, the halftime show for the Super Bowl is a highlight of the event, can cost millions to stage, and employ hundreds. It often serves as a crossover from pop culture.” Shows range from performance stunts, to controversy, and even pure musicianship, and it costs sponsors between 12 and 15 million dollars to sponsor a halftime show. In 2008, the halftime show was watched by close to 150 million people.

Greg Easterbook,in a New York Times essay, February 6, 2005, “A Super (Bowl) Break; Don’t Analyze That: A Day of Excess Won’t Kill Us,” says, “The Super Bowl is outsized, preposterous, excessive — which is the great thing about it. This is also why attempts to find hidden meaning in the Super Bowl are doomed to futility. The game has no vast social significance. The Super Bowl is just a big, overdone party” — all American, all excess. Nothing exceeds like excess.

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At msnbc, the essay is called, “Super Bowl coverage turns to ‘Idol’ for ratings: Seacrest, Abdul, Sparks lend star power; Petty delivers classic halftime act,” February 3, 2008, and it details the halftime extravaganza at the 2008 Super Bowl.

James T. O’Brien, just a sophomore journalism student on January 28, 2004, writing for the North Texas Daily, has put the Super Bowl into proper perspective in his life in his essay, “Super Bowl: better than Christmas??” The subtext reads: “Now that James O'Brien is grown, kiddie holidays like Christmas and Easter have lost their magic and appeal for him. Now Super Bowl Sunday has become one of his new favorites.” Read this essay and enjoy.
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