Super Sunday

As I was aimlessly scouring the Internet trying to whet my appetite for some sort of entertainment this past Monday, I stumbled across a poll on ESPN.com. The question was which event are you most looking forward to now that the Super Bowl is over? Not surprisingly, the NFL Draft garnered the most support out of the five options. More than 40 percent of the respondents were looking forward to more football rather than anything else.
America has an unbridled obsession with football. Our insatiable hunger for more pigskin blinds us from other deserving spectacles. The Winter Olympics, Major League Baseball, NBA playoffs and the World Cup now serve only as minor distractions, cute interludes between NFL seasons.
With 106 million viewers, Super Bowl XLIV captured more Americans’ attention than any other show in history, surpassing the 1983 finale of “M*A*S*H*.” Both Conference Championship Games also captured the most T.V. share since the 1980s, making this the most watched two weekends of football ever.
It comes as no surprise that a Super Bowl audience finally eclipsed the mark set in 1983, but why this year? Yes, the story lines surrounding the Saints and the fan support they amassed were immense but that, alone, couldn’t have pushed the number of viewers over the 100 million threshold.
Plus, if viewership were based solely on fan support, any Super Bowl featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers or Dallas Cowboys would have trumped this one.
The record number of viewers can be attributed to the play on the field. The two Super Bowls prior to this year were two of the best in the history of the game. Both were hotly contested up to the final seconds and both came down to incredible final drives. David Tyree’s memorable catch to extend the Giants’ game-winning drive has been etched into the sporting world’s conscience. And who could forget the see-saw battle of the Steelers and Cardinals in the final quarter capped off by the improbable sideline grab by Santonio Holmes last year? These two games are the biggest things to happen to the Super Bowl since I have been watching.
People have caught on to this concept of stellar play and have realized they do not want to miss a chance to witness history. This year it was not only the casual fans that were tuning in but also, I assert, many first time viewers that would not usually be interested in the game. This is the only logical rationale as to why there was such a significant increase in viewership.
Some people may claim the incliment weather on the East Coast provided the extra viewers, but that is not a satisfactory explanation. It is not as if people have never been snowed in on Super Bowl Sunday before.
This super Super Bowl had so many new viewers because people didn’t want to be left out of the conversation at the water cooler the next day like they had the previous two years. While their motives for watching could be questionable to some, I don’t mind it. At least they are watching because the superior product on the field demands it, and that is something I can support.