Super Bowl – Not ‘Super’ to Some People

Sunday, as you’re probably aware, is the National Football League’s Super Bowl. Preliminaries are over, and the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens are the last teams standing. Do you care?

Surprisingly, despite the pageantry, overwhelming media attention, and billions of dollars in advertising spent over the course of the four-hour event, millions of people across the USA have no interest in the Super Bowl or the particular teams playing.

Not everyone gets their "kicks"
from watching the Super Bowl.

This fact is somewhat startling to some individuals, particularly those having close personal involvement with sports. For instance, Mike Greenberg of ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” sports talk show annually expresses astonishment that viewership of the Super Bowl is not 100 percent. Out of the more than 300 million U.S. residents, for example, probably half will not watch a second of the Super Bowl.

This only makes sense. I have several friends that, despite the mania that surrounds American football and the near-religious overtones it carries, have no interest in the sport. Many newer residents of the USA might resonate with a soccer match, but can’t relate to the gladiator-like spectacle regardless of its social magnitude and tradition.

I have two little grandsons, both about two years old, who care not one iota who wins the Super Bowl. They’ll want to know if “Little Einsteins” will be on at that time. Think of residents of nursing homes, and people dealing with serious illnesses and injuries in hospitals. The Super Bowl isn’t likely to be foremost in any of their minds. And in some other parts of the world, the event is greeted by a collective “who cares?”

Then there are the folks who have no interest in spectator sports whatsoever. The afternoon and evening of this year’s Super Bowl, they’ll be going for walks, shopping, baking, painting, maybe even watching reruns of “I Love Lucy” or “M*A*S*H.”

Those of us intensely interested in the Super Bowl’s outcome need to understand that for many people it’s not the most important thing in the world. Even for a few hours on Sunday.

So if you greet the coming Super Bowl with a disinterested shrug, enjoy whatever you’ll be doing on Sunday. And if you’re among the fanatics that will be glued to a flat-screen TV, catching every moment of the game – along with the commercials – have fun. But remember, when gathering with friends rooting for opposing sides, avoid being like the people described in the book of Acts:

“The assembly was in confusion. Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there” (Acts 19:32).