10 Things I’ve Learned About The Super Bowl

This past Sunday was the fifth American Super Bowl that I have experienced. I say experience, I by no means mean I attended the actual thing, (see point 7). This one was notable for me as the final featured the Cincinnati Bengals, who got to there by beating the Kansas City Chiefs. I’m a Brit who once lived in Cincinnati, now lives in Kansas, and generally wants everyone to be happy. This was a bit of a head grinder.

Anyway, it’s a funny old game this American football and here’s what I’ve learned:

• The time is not the time.

My mind wanders while watching sport and I tend to get engaged only in the closing minutes when the payoff of triumph or misery of defeat is imminent. Having clock watched a bit during the Super Bowl, I soon realised that time was not moving in a normal way. The clock stops whenever the ball is out of play. And that is a lot of the time.

• It seems predictable, until it isn’t.

I don’t understand the scoring – it isn’t like English football, not least because the numbers are bigger and are not simply linked to quantity of goals. In this past week’s game, the score was 20-13 to the Bengals for ages. In this instance, I was certain of a Bengals victory as the (not actual) time ticked down to the supposedly closing minutes. Sadly, for my Cincinnati friends, this changed in favour of the LA Rams with 37 seconds remaining. Oh, that’s gotta hurt, right?

• Every team has this one guy…

Through the means of merchandise and social media in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, a name becomes apparent. For the Cincinnati Bengals, the one guy was Burrow (#9). For the KC Chiefs, the one guy was Mahomes (#15). For the entire sport the one guy seems to be Brady (#12). I’ve since learned that to be the one guy, you need to be the quarterback. It makes me feel for the others really.

• The half time show will always give you goosebumps.

You’ve got to hand it to the Americans, they give good show.  My five years of Super Bowl have included: Justin Timberlake (2018), Maroon 5 (2019), Shakira and Jennifer Lopez (2020), The Weeknd (2021) and this year the mega medley of Snoop Dogg, Dr Dre, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lemar.  The music is diverse and it may not always be your cup of tea, but blimey, do they ever party like it’s 1999 (Prince, 2007).

• … And there’s always something to talk about the next day.

I think this goes back to Janet Jackson’s nipple-gate of 2004. Were Shakira and J-Lo too raunchy? Was the average age of this year’s line up too old? Does Adam Levine have too many tatts? Eminem took a knee (YAY!).

• Adverts are part of it. And it’s sort of cool.

Much like retailer Christmas ads in the UK, Super Bowl ads are entertainment. As a former Marketing Manager, I’m fascinated by them. It seems that the key is to get the most famous person, who is least expected to be in an advert and to get them to do the most unexpected thing. The paradox here is that you’d think this would be humiliating for them, but it somehow isn’t.

• Going to an actual Super Bowl is not really something you can easily do.

Even for someone who isn’t a devoted spectator of sports, I can see that the moment quickly comes when you will think, oh I’d really like to experience that for real.  You would expect this to be a pricey thing, of course… maybe £400 or so? Negative, ghost rider, add a zero and another grand or two and you may be at the price of the cheap seats. Puff up those sofa cushions, baby.

• It’s like rugby, but it isn’t.

Rugby soon comes up in discussions with Americans about their ‘football’. I won’t embarrass myself with any technicalities here, save to say, someone seems to have largely turned a blind eye to the safety audit in Rugby but dialled it to the max with AF. My search to find out which was the more dangerous revealed that, whilst play in AF is much more aggressive, you are much more likely to get hurt in rugby. So, who’s the best?

• Supporter Apparel is for life, not just for Super Bowl.

Americans are incredibly proud of their local teams, so much so, the gear can be bought in supermarkets all year round.  Whilst in the UK, the football shirt is mostly associated with a sun burned Brit abroad, American team ‘spirit wear’ are clothes you can wear all the time, who doesn’t love a raglan sleeve, bright colours and an inherent sense of belonging?

• It brings people together.

The American Super Bowl is a national institution. However, you feel about sports, or AF, or the teams, it’s very hard not to get caught up with it and it seems a very happy thing. What seems to be different, is that in Britain, our sporting passion gets to Super Bowl heights for the national teams, and I guess that’s all about scale. But, at the end of the day in our divisive times, these things are battles, victories, defeats but mostly good clean fun.

To that I say, TOUCHDOWN!