If you missed the Super Bowl, you missed out

Whether you’re a fan of the National Football League, i.e. “American football” or not, you can’t deny the power of the premier event put on by the league.

The “Super Bowl” came into being when two rival football leagues, the AFL and the NFL, merged to form one “super league” in the 1960’s. The main college games were called “bowls” i.e. the Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl, etc. so the NFL braintrust decided to call their own premier game the “Super Bowl”.

They’re not exactly subtle with their intentions, are they…

Back in the late 90’s and early 00’s, I was part of a church group that shunned anything and everything that popular culture peddled.

Jesus is coming back tomorrow, the thought was, so why concern yourself with the filth of this world?

There are a lot of people who think the same way, albeit sans the Jesus coming back tomorrow thinking.

Some people are genuinely uninterested in American football, so I don’t fault them for not watching the Super Bowl.

But for those who hold such priggish views, I think they’re selling themselves short.

The church people in particular.

And here’s why I believe this.

The Super Bowl is most definitely a football game. Two teams from each conference within the NFL play each other, and the winner is considered the champion of the NFL for that year.

All others are losers.

But to call it just a football game completely misses the point of the event.

This is where the latest and greatest in pop culture come together and show what they’re all about – for better or worse.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that if you pay attention, you can get a master’s level understanding of American culture in about 5 hours just by watching the Super Bowl.

Well, maybe it’s a little bit of a stretch, but it’s not that far from the truth.

There are people who watch the Super Bowl just because of the commercials. They could care less about the game, but the ads during the game are considered to be the best in the business.

Super Bowl commercials have taken on their own life, totally separate from “ordinary” commercials. The best and brightest advertisers show up in force. The most marketable stars are hired to peddle things like realty services, life insurance, even baby food.

If you want to get to know a culture, just look at the ads in mainstream media. The people producing these things have their finger on the pulse of the culture they’re selling to.

Again, this is a “for better or worse” situation. But if you want to learn the culture in which you’re living, there’s no better opportunity to do so than the Super Bowl.

So Philadelphia won last night’s game. And outside of the Philadelphia and Kansas City metro areas, I’m willing to bet very few others in America really care.

But the football game itself is an event within an event.

The Super Bowl is a true meeting place where all are welcome and can enjoy themselves. Not only that, but we can learn some valuable lessons by just paying attention, and in some ways being a passive spectator of the whole thing.

The church group I mentioned earlier will disagree. We witnessed the degradation of society last night, according to them.

No one will ever hear of them anyways, so who cares what they think?