Ah, the Super Bowl: Just an excuse for a motley crew of stuff to happen in a way the NBA playoffs and the World Series have not been able to duplicate.
For me, the Feb. 1 Super Bowl XLIX was an excuse to have a long-coveted get-together with three friend-chicks at an unlikely place and partake of the salty appetizers I shouldn't have been giving so much as a passing glance.
The list of things for which the Super Bowl provides excuses to do has become as long as, if not longer than, the list of Super Bowls held. Here are just a few.
Many say it's certainly an excuse to party, and it's certainly an excuse to eat.
It has to be up there with the end-of-the-year holidays as an opportunity to scarf down outrageously sinful food. The Huffington Post ran an illustrated list of "The Craziest Super Bowl Food Concoctions," which included Bacon Explosion, Blooming Bacon Cheddar Ranch Bread and snacks arranged to resemble a football stadium.
It's an excuse for Madison Avenue to be creative -- as well as an excuse for viewers to enjoy commercials for products they don't use. I haven't darkened the door of a Radio Shack for a while, but still chuckle at its popular "The '80s called" commercial from last year, as well as just about every Budweiser Super Bowl ad. Thanks, YouTube, for letting us relive the one featuring the guy who wore his long-haired pet pooch as a dreadlocks wig to get into a no-pets-allowed beer joint.
It's prime fodder for scandals in a sports organization that's already riddled with them. Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction. The Chicago Bears' Jim McMahon in mooning mode. The Green Bay Packers' Max McGee getting plastered the night before the Big Game (he did redeem himself by catching seven passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns despite the hangover). The Atlanta Falcons' Eugene Robinson deciding to pick up a hooker the day before the Big Game and on the same day he was given the Bart Starr Award. An earlier doctored football incident.
It's an excuse to see the mother of all live music videos by the pop star du jour, as well as a few has-beens/old-schoolers who sometimes show up the young pups.
It's an excuse for strange bedfellows, ironies and incongruities to emerge. General example: the socializing of athletes and armchair football experts with those who know little about football. A feminine product "Like a Girl" ad running during a game once thought to be a guy's domain. This year's uptick of commercials bearing social messages -- including Coca-Cola's commercial bearing happiness and positivity -- clashing with the nasty fight among players at the end of the game.
It's an excuse to get to work late -- or not at all -- on Monday. A USA Today story reveals that the number of workers who get to the office late jumps the day after the Super Bowl, as does flat-out absenteeism. The Workforce Institute estimated that 1.5 million workers wouldn't show up the morning after. Not a big tragedy, but workers shouldn't fib about why they're late, according to USA Today. (You knocked yourself out in the shower? Really? Better to manufacture your own Deflategate scenario, starring your car's tires.)
But the most head-shaking excuse the Super Bowl provides may well be the excuse to charge exorbitant prices. "With only seven hours to kickoff ... the cheapest available ticket was priced at $11,246.50" this year, according to an article posted on game day at Forbes.com. "Paying that price would get a fan one seat in Row 10 of Upper Sideline 449 at the University of Phoenix Stadium." Paying that price would get a student a year's tuition and then some from the University of Phoenix online campus, according to Google. Full-time undergraduate online students paid $10,878 in tuition and fees for the 2013-14 school year. And let's not talk about the cost of those ads.
The vast majority who can't afford Super Bowl attendance? Goes back to that excuse to party. It's obviously cheaper. And the party itself provides the excuse for Blooming Bacon Cheddar Ranch Bread.
Toss a coin. Or an email:
hwilliams@arkansasonline.com
Style on 02/08/2015