Super Bowl Coverage: Too extreme for me…

For my next post about the Super Bowl I have to thank the people that have invited me to a party on Sunday, beginning at 2:00 p.m., which means four and a half hours before the start of the actual game. But the sad part of this is that it will be two hours after NBC, who is the network that has the Super Bowl coverage, has begun its coverage of the event. And if you go to ESPN they will be doing their pre-game show from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m., which means that in all you could get yourself eight plus hours of pre-game show. And while anyone that knows me knows I love the game this has gone over board.

But it gets worst, because even if I could stomach from noon til 6:30 of football, all football, nothing else but football (with the exception of the 100’s of commercials that is), the sad reality is that the coverage is not about just football anymore, it’s about many other things as well. So besides getting all the so-called experts to tell me why one team will beat the other, why this guy is better than the other, why this, why that and why whatever else, we will also have to go into the non-football segments such as Matt Lauer interviewing the President, Bob Costas interviewing Madonna, and Nick Cannon working the red carpet.

With all due respect, I loved when Presiden Obama did the March Madness board. Why? Because it was a novelty, it was something different and something most people never saw. But now it’s not new, it’s not fresh, it is becoming almost expected at major sporting events and that does not make for good watching. But then again at least the President seems to know sports, while interviewing Madonna just seems giving hype to the half time show that seriously I could care less. In other words, for me, the fan that might not have a team he likes or follows in the National Football League, but does know the game well and understands the X’s and O’s you are proving the point that the Super Bowl coverage is becoming an attraction and not a sporting event. And while no one will be astonished about what I say next, it’s all about ratings, which is sad, since the Super Bowl should be about the two best teams in the NFL going at it for a chance to win it all.

Sad but true, the Super Bowl, as indicated by the fans that show up to it, is partly about football and partly about entertaining the masses that think this is the only game that the National Football League plays. But I do have a solution to part of the problem. In those six plus hours of coverage maybe NBC could show us small pieces of the parties that went on during the week, give us an access look at what happened from the last whistle for both teams two weeks prior until now. In other words, let’s get away from both sides of the spectrum, meaning the detailed break downs of the game or the extravagant stuff like talking to the President and the halt time show, and let’s give the middle a chance to shine. Who knows, it might even work!

In the end, when the dust has cleared from all the going ons and see we Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth in the booth we will know that it is time once again to watch what the last two weeks have made us crave for, the Super Bowl, until then just hope that the food spread is good and there is plenty of cold beverages ready to be had.