MindFull Media: Super Sunday

It's a shame there's only  one day a year when the commercials are as good as the show on TV.

The Super Bowl is no longer just a game. It was once an event where friends gathered around a TV for a night of beer, food and football, but it's grown into a cultural phenomenon that everyone wants a part of.

It is by far the most popular media event in America. Not every American is a football fan per se, but 111.3 million people tuned into Sunday's game, breaking last season's viewership record and leaving the one-time record holder — the 106-million-viewer, 1983 M*A*S*H finale — in the dust.

Only the NFL could get an entire country to watch weeks of the same predictions, analysis and headlines on every sports network. Watch the Super Bowl Media Day and you'll gain insight into the media circus, as hundreds of reporters round up players and coaches into a ring in order ask the same mundane and irrelevant questions.

I think my way of game prediction is just as effective; A brutal game of NFL Blitz on the Nintendo 64. I definitely don't need to hear constant "expertise" from 20 former NFL greats — each who have retired in the last five to ten years — spewing off guesstimates about the final score.

The secret to the Super Bowl's audience success is that it's the one day of the year commercials decide to be creative. This year, national corporations poured an average of $3.5 million into each 30-second advertisement in order to get a piece of the hundred million potential consumers.

Animal Planet and MTV 2 even capitalized on Super Sunday. Puppy Bowl VIII broke Animal Planet's audience record this year with 11 million. Who knew 20 puppies and 10 toys could engage more viewers than the 14 women in helmets, shoulder pads and bikinis in Lingerie Bowl IX.

There's no question football is king in America. I'm sure more people remember the total number of days the league was locked out this summer than the Iranian hostage crisis.

Well, to those who don't, the lockout was 132 long days, and Americans were on the edge of their seat, hoping for the end.

The lockout would have left a significant economic bruise. If the NFL was an independent nation, it would be the 86th largest country in the world in terms of nominal GDP — $32.89 billion — roughly the size of Kenya. Even the smallest team — the Jacksonville Jaguars — is larger than the likes of Solomon Islands, Grenada or Somoa. (Dare you to find those on a map.)

michael.beall@umontana.edu