Greetings from Newport Beach, California, USA!
Photo taken on Saturday, February 2, 2008.
Football is the biggest sport in the world but the game varies from place to place. In the United States we call the most popular version soccer, which uses a round black & white ball while the Australian and American versions of football use an oval brown one. Everything else is different – rules, point system, clothing. I’ve watched these three versions and one thing does stay the same. For one day all attention in the respective countries is focused on that last game – soccer’s World Cup, Aussie-rules footie’s Grand Final and American gridiron’s Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl is the USA’s biggest event in sports and television and last Sunday I was one of the nearly 100 million or one-third of all Americans watching it. But it’s not just about the game. Only true football fans remember which teams won and lost. The rest of us look forward to the big game for other reasons.
Many people have money in a betting pool – that 10-by-10 grid of numbers and names. During the game, these living room gamblers are figuring out how many points each team needs for the score to match their squares and win the end-of-quarter jackpots. Some like the parties and the table full of guacamole, buffalo wings and beer. For others it’s all about the half-time show. We remember Janet Jackson and her “wardrobe malfunction” but do we recall which year or what songs she or anyone else performed? Many watch the ads more intently than the game itself. My favorite had a cocktail party with men in the kitchen covertly watching football on a mini tv and drinking beer hidden in fake food and gift baskets that they brought. Now you know why I watch.
The Super Bowl is about the game as well as the commercials, half-time show, parties and betting pools. Just like the Oscars is about the award winners as well as the dresses, best song performances, parties and betting pools. The similarities are almost scary.
Not Super Bowl-related is the weekly photo. The American Cancer Society’s signature fundraiser is the Relay for Life (details in a future email). To launch this year’s event, the organizers hosted a Kick Off – the football connection is coincidental, I think – which included the city’s Police, Fire and Lifeguard departments displaying their vehicles and equipment. The boy on the water-ski was too cute to pass up.
Angelo
PS x 3: 1) The New York Giants won the Super Bowl, 17-14, upsetting the season-long winning streak of the heavily favored New England Patriots; 2) Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers performed at half-time; 3) Check in a year if I remember either of these.
Photo taken on Saturday, February 2, 2008.
Football is the biggest sport in the world but the game varies from place to place. In the United States we call the most popular version soccer, which uses a round black & white ball while the Australian and American versions of football use an oval brown one. Everything else is different – rules, point system, clothing. I’ve watched these three versions and one thing does stay the same. For one day all attention in the respective countries is focused on that last game – soccer’s World Cup, Aussie-rules footie’s Grand Final and American gridiron’s Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl is the USA’s biggest event in sports and television and last Sunday I was one of the nearly 100 million or one-third of all Americans watching it. But it’s not just about the game. Only true football fans remember which teams won and lost. The rest of us look forward to the big game for other reasons.
Many people have money in a betting pool – that 10-by-10 grid of numbers and names. During the game, these living room gamblers are figuring out how many points each team needs for the score to match their squares and win the end-of-quarter jackpots. Some like the parties and the table full of guacamole, buffalo wings and beer. For others it’s all about the half-time show. We remember Janet Jackson and her “wardrobe malfunction” but do we recall which year or what songs she or anyone else performed? Many watch the ads more intently than the game itself. My favorite had a cocktail party with men in the kitchen covertly watching football on a mini tv and drinking beer hidden in fake food and gift baskets that they brought. Now you know why I watch.
The Super Bowl is about the game as well as the commercials, half-time show, parties and betting pools. Just like the Oscars is about the award winners as well as the dresses, best song performances, parties and betting pools. The similarities are almost scary.
Not Super Bowl-related is the weekly photo. The American Cancer Society’s signature fundraiser is the Relay for Life (details in a future email). To launch this year’s event, the organizers hosted a Kick Off – the football connection is coincidental, I think – which included the city’s Police, Fire and Lifeguard departments displaying their vehicles and equipment. The boy on the water-ski was too cute to pass up.
Angelo
PS x 3: 1) The New York Giants won the Super Bowl, 17-14, upsetting the season-long winning streak of the heavily favored New England Patriots; 2) Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers performed at half-time; 3) Check in a year if I remember either of these.
