10 Reasons Why I Don’t Care About The Super Bowl

I’m not trying to sound like a whiner, but I don’t care about the Super Bowl. I know I’m not alone in my feelings of indifference with the Big Game, but we’re clearly the outnumbered uncaring minority.

With this years 48th Super Bowl being played in my home state there is a ridiculous amount of attention and hype being heaped upon the game by the local news stations and newspapers. Everything from stories on security, local entertainment, weather reports, Super Bowl-themed events and every little detail about the upcoming game is getting coverage.

There’s so much reporting about the northeast weather and how it might effect the game it’s become unbearable. Everyone is so concerned about the cold conditions.

Quite frankly I would find it much more exciting to watch a football game being played in a blizzard with the players having to run around on a field covered in ice, but it seems no one else is hoping for that. All this coverage has reached such a saturation point most of the people I’ve talked with about it are already sick of hearing about the Super Bowl.

Supposedly all New Jerseyans are excited and proud that we’re hosting the Bowl – along with New York apparently. Somehow NJ and NY has become a package deal. There’s a feeling that the world is watching and NJ has to be ready to put on a real great show for them and everyone is gearing up to receive visitors from all around the world. Boy, I can’t wait for this to be over.

This isn’t meant to pick on or put down any Super Bowl fans. All you guys go enjoy the day, I hope you have a blast and have a lot of fun. But just to continue to sound like a real wet blanket, here’s ten reasons why I don’t care about the Super Bowl.

1. I don’t like football

Never did. This is probably the biggest reason why I have never gotten into the Super Bowl hysteria. Other than baseball, I’ve never been a big sports guy and I’ve always found football incredibly boring.

When I would try watching football games it felt like the majority of time would be spent watching the players mill around, slowly line up, quickly rush into each other and then go back to milling around again. What’s most irritating is that for some reason they keep the clock running for all of this. Minutes tick down and players are just standing around. I never thought that was very exciting and a big waste of game time.

I heard a statistic that the actual amount of ‘football play’ that will happen during this upcoming Super Bowl – meaning leaving out the aimlessly walking around and huddling of the players and only counting the parts of them rushing into each other and throwing the football around – will equal approximately sixteen minutes.

Sixteen minutes of play out of what….a four-hour game with all that extended entertainment they throw in? No wonder I find the game boring.

Maybe if that XFL thing stuck around I could have gotten into that.

2. The all-day pre-game nonsense

Holy mackrel they love to milk this game. I can’t say I blame them. I mean, if they supposedly have all these millions of people tuning in and the game being one of the most watched events of the year you might as well try to stretch it out all day…..even if you don’t have much to show the audience.

This all-day pre-game buildup usually seems to consist of live performances of singers in what looks to be parking lots filled with crowds of people. Sometimes it doesn’t even look like planned events. It’s almost like the cameras stumbled onto some random tailgate party and are just filming fans hanging out.

They throw in interviews of players and football folk. They take a look at what’s going on around town, like visiting bars and watching people prepare food. Then of course there’s the buildup with sportscasters talking about the game and predictions and all that. It just seems the network airing the Bowl are grabbing for anything to fill airtime leading up to the game. For me none of it is compelling enough to watch.

3. This party atmosphere looks very boring

Everyone is hooting and hollering. They’re dressed in their team colors. They’re all wandering about having a grand old time eating and drinking. I’m always left wondering – what are these people celebrating?

It’s one huge expensive crowded tailgate party. It sure doesn’t look appealing to me. It looks more like aggravation.

Which brings me to another point….

4. Why don’t they do this on a Saturday?

Everyone is so geared up to host their Super Bowl party or get to one. They want to hang out with friends and have the game running on multiple giant TV screens all around them.

This is really the only alluring thing I can think of about the Super Bowl – it’s an excuse to get together with friends.

This is obviously a known party event that potato chip companies love, so why do they have to hold the game on a Sunday?

The handful of Super Bowl parties I’ve gone to everytime there are people who have to leave before the game ends because they have to get up for work the following day. They start the game so late, by the time the whole thing ends it’s going on ten, eleven o’clock my time. Why not allow people to not worry about waking up Monday from their ‘Super Bowl high’ and hold the stupid thing on a Saturday where everyone can party all through the night and actually hang out and watch the entire thing?

5. The focus on beer

I won’t be surprised if one day they nix having any alcoholic advertisements associated with the Super Bowl. I’m sure it seems unfathomable to football fans to not have beer be featured so prominently with the game. They go hand in hand I guess.

But some PC group at some point will zero in on this association, they’ll yell loud enough and suddenly beer commercials will be a no-no for what is billed as ‘family entertainment’ programming. It just seems like an inevitable collision to me.

I’m not sure out of all the ads that run during the day how many are beer commercials, but it has to be a decent amount. Although I don’t really care if they want to promote beer all through the game, I will admit I do find it somewhat hypocritical. The amount of attention beer gets during Super Bowl Sunday is somewhat ridiculous and pretty in-your-face.

As everyone recalls there was that big controversy over Janet Jackson’s nipple being shown to the youth of the world during that halftime show, I’m surprised a similar movement hasn’t started with issues of beer ads being shoved into kids faces in a game that ends having the winning quarterback going to Disney World.

I predict that a day will come when complaints will be made to lose the beer ads during the game. The network will be forced to drop them and it will all be under the guise of protecting our kids from glorifying beer by cute talking frogs and cool dogs during the broadcast and peaking kids interest to take a sip.

Honestly, I don’t keep up with this crap. I don’t drink beer and other than those ‘Most Interesting Man In the World’ commercials they can lose all the rest and I’d never miss them. Even adding the disclaimer of ‘drink responsibly’ doesn’t seem to be endorsed by some of the spectators in the stands of the game who are chugging and acting like idiots doing that yelling stuff.

6. The commercials suck

This is a biggie. And it’s usually the rationale behind even the most casual sports watcher as to why they’re going to tune into the game.

Companies are going to be paying around $4 million bucks for a thirty-second spot to hock their wares during the game. Based on some famous and beloved commercials through the years people expect to see some fun ads.

Unfortunately, they’re basing this hope on cool ads that were broadcast over twenty, thirty, forty years ago and since then barely any commercial have reached the legendary, talked-about status of any of those past glories. Spending $4 million bucks doesn’t guarantee a company will come up with a clever ad. It just cements them a spot that they’ll get they’re name on television during the game.

I used to hold out hope for seeing some funny commercials, but honestly I can’t remember the last Super Bowl ad I really liked and that stuck in my head.

They’ll air specials about the Great Super Bowl Commercials and they always fallback on the same ones, like the one with Mean Joe Green giving the kid his jersey. When was that…1979? Not a lot of new ones have been added to that list in recent years.

So, most likely the next day you’ll hear people complain there were no good commercials or they’ll be reaching for one or two that stuck in their head saying ‘that one was pretty good’.

Besides, if you hear about a commercial people are talking about you can just go on the internet to watch it very easily. They didn’t have that option in 1979 so people didn’t have a choice but to sit through every single commercial during the game to come across a good one.

7. The half-time entertainment

I’m always amazed at what an over-produced mess these half-times shows have become. I’ve never been excited to watch any of these spectacles and they come off very square to me.

My favorite part is where they have a singer on stage and there’s a pre-selected crowd around them waving their arms and dancing as if they were just spectators in the real crowd who managed to come down to the field and get up close to the performer. Yeah right.

I think the last time I was geared up to watch a half-time performance was when Dan Aykroyd stepped back in his Elwood Blues suit and performed alongside James Belushi, John Goodman and James Brown in some kind of Blues Brothers Bash. I have since been scared to ever rewatch it. I think I’d rather forget it. Can you imagine a time when this actually took place!

I don’t care what big-name star they have, it doesn’t make it any more exciting and them coming out with all these elaborate sets and a hundred dancers just makes this long game feel even longer. I don’t even know who’s supposed to perform this year. Not that I care. Whatever happened to local marching bands walking around?

I would find it much more captivating if this half-time performance was a sing-off between the two teams! Now that would be great television! Hearing each of them try to belt out a tune. Finally some riveting entertainment!

Whatever happened to the good old days when footballs teams were willing to embarrass themselves by trying to sing? I can’t be the only one who fondly recalls ‘The Superbowl Shuffle’ and ‘New England the Patriots and We’ songs that saturated the airwaves before that Super Bowl.

8. How everyone seems to want to get in on the act

During the half-time at the Super Bowl there’s always some weird alternative programming gimmick going on that wants to try to hijack the audience over to their channel and watch some strange ‘event’.

There’s been the the Puppy Bowl, the Butt Bowl, Celebrity Deathmatch and of course the Lingerie Bowl (that one I’d rather watch than the real Super Bowl). This year Animal Planet is apparently airing something called the Fish Bowl that I’ve heard simply consists of goldfish swimming in a fishbowl. Very odd.

9. Does anyone really care who wins this thing?

Sometimes I figure most of the people who actually goto the game only go because it’s ‘the Super Bowl’ and really don’t care about the actual game.

Maybe the bragging rights and being able to tell their friends they went to a Super Bowl is more important than what’s unfolding on the field. I can understand you want to see who wins if you place a bet on the game or are a fan, but I question if a lot of attendees actually care who goes home with the trophy. 

10. Everyone feels obligated to watch this game

I’m not sure why or how it happened. Even I get the occasional musing of ‘maybe I’ll watch some of it’. I have no idea why. It’s as if it’s become such a talked about, popular event that if you don’t watch the Super Bowl you’ll feel like you’re going to be left out on something and won’t know what people are talking about the following day.

But really you’re not going to be missing anything. After hearing some comments about a few commercials, the half-time show and perhaps a few people referencing some actual plays all of it will be forgotten by Tuesday and you’ll never hear about any of it again. Until the next Super Bowl.