Super Bowl XLIX Is Here

Can you believe it? After thirty-two teams started OTA's last summer, training camps on college campuses, four preseason games, sixteen regular-season games, the playoffs and we finally have reached the ultimate game with the two number one seeds from each conference and it is time to play one more game.

Many past Super Bowl's have not lived up to their hype. Many people will watch the game simply to watch the commercials. Often times, people readily admit they tune in simply to see which new commercial will make them want to go out and buy whatever product the advertiser is pushing.

According to Forbes magazine, "despite America's love affair with Super Bowl commercials — many marketers believe their enormous cost is not worth the price. This year, a 30-second spot is an eye-popping $4 million while a 60-second spot goes for a jaw-dropping $8 million." They contend it is worth every penny to the advertisers!

According to StubHub, the cheapest tickets available today are between nine and ten thousand dollars each! Just think, you can pay that kind of money to watch the Super Bowl live and then you would miss out on all the commercials! I guess you could record it and watch the commercials when you get home.

That is a dramatic change from the first few Super Bowls that did not even sell out. Tickets to that first game were twelve dollars! Remember, that was in 1967 and in 1967, the average cost of a new home was less than twenty-five thousand All well  A new car cost about $2,750. Admission to the movies was just $1.20. How times have changed!

In fact, Super Bowl I was not even called Super Bowl I until a few years later. It was simply known as the Super game. There was a great animosity between me upstart American Football League (AFL) and the well-established, big brother, National Football League (NFL). Nobody thought the AFL team should even be on the field with the winner of the NFL. Most people were predicting a blowout and as it turned out the Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10.

The second year was a repeat of game one and that game was won by Green Bay over the Oakland Raiders by a score of 33-14. Once again, it was proven that big brother was superior to the upstart American Football League.

It was not until the third championship game that it became officially the Super Bowl when brash, young Broadway Joe Namath led the New York Jets over the Baltimore Colts 16-7 in a game he guaranteed before the game that the AFL and NFL were finally merged and now have two conferences known as the American  Conference and the National Conference. More than anything else, that game forced the merger of the two leagues.

There have been many changes in names, locations, team additions and it has grown to be arguably America's favorite sport ahead of baseball. That is a discussion for another post.

Both sports are experiencing unprecedented increases in popularity, revenue, controversy and exposure. In many ways the national landscape is changing dramatically from the expansion and abundance of professional sports.

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Here is an interesting bit of trivia for you. There are only two days every year when there is not at least one game going on in one of the four major league sports. I am talking about the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. Those two days are the day before and the day after Major League Baseball's All-Star game every summer. Otherwise, you can watch at least one game every day of the year in those four sports. Whether or not you are a sports fan, you have to admit those are some pretty impressive numbers and as the value of the players, teams, stadiums, arenas and merchandise continues to rise professional sports plays a significant role in many American lives.

The Big Game between the defending Seattle Seahawks and the New England  Patriots is only hours away and hopefully proves to be everything it has been hyped up to be.

My big question is, "What am I going to do with my Sunday afternoons until baseball season starts?" Of course, that is forgetting there are always multiple NBA games on and I have solitaire on my computer. Of course, March Madness is not far off. That is always a great time for us college basketball fans!

I am ready for kickoff. I just hope it is a good game and nobody gets hurt.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike