The Superbowl Is Shit
Neckbeard and NPCs getting all caught up in the drama.
I can’t tell you how baffled I am that a game as boring as this has captured an increasing share of the Australian sportsnut market over the course of my lifetime.
As far as art-nerd-goth hybrids go, I have had a pretty positive rapport with quite a number of spectator sports. We have to talk the pre-GFC era before wokeism took hold and wrecked pretty much all of them. But Aussie Rules and Soccer were regular viewing for me growing up. I was mad into both of them. I played them both. Badly mind you, but i took part nevertheless. Tennis and cricket were pretty crap but can be argued as mildly okay on summertime boredom grounds (test cricket only). Test Cricket had the added interest of its shameless embrace of ex-British Empire grievance-mongering and score-settling. And Warney, who was kindof everyone’s local beach bogan yob come good. Even when he was acting like a dickhead or stuffing up his life he was funny. His doping scandal was definitely the most entertaining for all ages.
The Olympics was mostly garbage even back then, though the winter version had its curiosities. F1 had a lot of excitement and buzz around it in the 1990s, less so in the 00s though it was still a bit there. But the high drama around the big names still impact me to this day. Similar with boxing, though it was just one name: Mike Tyson. I went back recently to watch the highlights reels of the big fighters of the late 20th century and wish I gave that sport a better shake at the time. UFC was just getting started and was an oddball curiosity more than anythign, kind of on a par with Gladiatiors, Survivor or Japanese Game Shows.
The major American team sports did not push very far into the Australian psyche back then, though SBS had started experimenting with Superbowl broadcasts. The chilled ramblings of SBS World Game panellist (and former hard-rock musician) Damien Lovelock was probably the best thing about it. Corporate Australia tried to make basketball a thing in the 90s off the back of Michael Jordan-mania, and the team they put up was the Melbourne Magic. You’d see a smattering of Magic and Chicago Bulls singlets around. But it never got traction, though obviously Andrew Bogut got into it. There was even a local Jordan (imported from the states), called Adonis Jordan. And Andrew Gaze. It was all about Gaze really. Basketball is not my thing but at least it flows freely and set to a reasonable time limit so i’ll give it credit for that. The Kurtis Blow song on Basketball is I reckon the pinnacle of that sport’s cultural achievement. Forget Space Jam.
I only got to become properly acquainted with North American Sports in depth when I went to the US and Canada right before GFC. The big 4 are: Ice hockey, Basketball, Baseball and American Football (AKA Gridiron as we call it in oz). Of the four the only one thats any good as a spectacle is Ice Hockey. It has to be Ice hockey. Grass hockey is boring. But Ice Hockey is pretty nuts. I played it once and got my shins utterly hacked to pieces along with a bunch of Australians who had never played before. We were whacking each other with the sticks by mistake as we kept trying and failing to hit the puck. I had gashes and bruises everywhere. Good times. Watching it was great too. They tried to dial back the fights in the NHL but in the smaller leagues they still went on, and i got to see a local game or two. I’m pleased to say that two players squared up for an on-the-rink fight sometime at the start of the third period. Both local boys, so the home-town crowd full of friends and fam were motivated to cheer on the impromptu bout.
The thing with Ice Hockey is that it’s a free-flowing game. And that’s the key. It moves, it’s fully interactive and not so bogged down with rules, stoppages and umpiring. Whack the puck, score goals, dont fall down, dont get knocked over or pulled into a fight. They use the wall. The uniforms and stadium look cool as. There’s this intruiging geopolitical situation whereby the most hardcore fans are Canadians but the best teams (with the most money to buy the best players) are from the sunnier US states where there is no actual ice. Detroit has a team called the Red Wings and i’ve always liked Detroit (i’ll talk about that one day). Its fast, everyone gets fully into it.
Baseball is basically Americas cricket, and its imo a worse game. And that’s saying something. It goes forever and nothing happens. There is no activity. There is just stats and guys standing, and guys who sit and stand and talk about the stats. And that’s it. And that is basically the element that Gridiron has merged into a code of football. Nothing happens in gridiron. The game goes forever. And nothing happens. Its a ref-dominated game (as Aussie rules sadly now is). The ref has too much control of the gameplay. It was bad 20 years ago and it’s bad today. And they just go forward and backward. At least rugby they do this without the padding.
The only thing that made the Superbowl worthwhile back in the day were the ads and the half-time show. Judging from the lack of noise about this year’s game that gets down to me, they’ve both gone by the wayside too. Or we just have more important things to worry about these days. I dunno. I’ll end it there.
Sportsball. Probably a waste of time and ruined by corporate and political meddling, no matter which one you are talking about.