With half the stadium cheering for one team and the other half cheering for the other team, the noise level rarely descends below a dull roar. It's just that something weird happens when the audience is split 50-50 between fans of one team and fans of the other team. The problem isn't that the game isn't well-attended -because dear God. Still, something is lost by playing the Super Bowl at a neutral site. If two teams are going to play just one game to determine who is superior, it wouldn't be right to give home-field advantage to one team. It's mostly that, but there's also a fairness component. There's more to it than the NFL trying to line its pockets as much as possible. I'm not going to say the Super Bowl shouldn't be played at a neutral site. Shorter than the average Super Bowl!Īnd you know what else is cool about a Game 7? While the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians did need four hours and 28 minutes to complete their extra-innings romp in Game 7 of last year's World Series, every other non-extra-innings Game 7 has been played in under three-and-a-half hours. No thanks to modern bullpens being what they are, Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight noted that baseball games do get longer in the postseason. To be sure, it's rational to fear that a Game 7 will take longer to get through those 18 minutes. There's an anthem in the beginning and possibly some silliness during the seventh-inning stretch, but anyone who tunes into a Game 7 to see just a ballgame will have their wish granted. You know what you get with a Game 7? Baseball and, well, baseball. Watch the Super Bowl with the special glasses on, and you'll see the signs that say "Obey" and "Consume."
It is a description of an overlong, overstuffed variety show in which football is a third wheel alongside entertainment and commercialism. This is not a description of a football game.
A halftime performance in which Lady Gaga will sing some words in front of a light show.A national anthem performance that will exist solely to be mocked.Joe Buck and Troy Aikman making small talk.Players standing around and discussing what they'll be doing when they're not standing around.Going off these numbers, you can count on Sunday's showdown between the.New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons consisting of 5 percent football and 95 percent other stuff. You can't do that with Game 7 of the World Series. Or hop in the nearest cryo chamber and set the dial to early February.
It'll probably be played by brain-damage-proof robots, but the 50 years after that will otherwise be the same. It's been that way for the last 50 years and will stay that way for the next 50 years. Like new Star Wars moves, there's a Super Bowl every year. Sure it was. And this brings us back to Game 7 and the Super Bowl. I'll say this, though: Wasn't Star Wars more special when we had to wait years between movies rather than just 12 months? But to expose these people as liars, you need only give them a flashlight and wait for them to wave it around making "vwing" noises. Look, it's great they're making more Star Wars movies.Įveryone likes Star Wars. Some will say otherwise. And they're not even the alternative kind.Ī Special Occasion vs. One of them is objectively better than the other. I can prove it with a few facts.