The not so Super Bowl

Today America consummates its love of football in a gigantic extravaganza called the Super Bowl. Unlike most of the country, I won’t be watching, wagering, drinking, or overeating.

I don’t like the Super Bowl, for many reasons:

1. The game of football is a strange one, as it involves brief clashes between superhuman athletes protected by elaborate equipment followed by long intervals when nothing interesting is happening. Compare rugby, where the ball is almost constantly in play: “no pads, no helmets, just balls.”
2. All that protection it turns out is pretty much useless. Professional football players are succumbing early and often to serious brain injuries. They also suffer many other serious ailments. The sport is deadly.
3. But it is also appealing to minority youth, as most of the well-paid professional players are black. So we end up cheering minority athletes who are damaging their own health and well being for (mainly white) America’s amusement. Anything wrong with that?
4. The National Football League that administers this murderous affair has succumbed to political pressure, cracking down on athletes who have tried to use their public exposure to protest racial abuse, mainly by America’s police departments.
5. Much of American spends Super Bowl Sunday loafing, betting, and over-imbibing, so advertisers spend truly astronomical sums selling their wares to an insalubrious audience. The cleverness that once characterized Super Bowl ads has largely evaporated. Why bother when so many of the spectators are drunk?

The only real virtue I can think of for the Super Bowl is its instruction on Roman numerals, as that is how the annual event is labeled. This year is Super Bowl LIII. That’s fitting, since the event resembles the deadly gladiatorial contests of Ancient Rome.

No, I won’t be watching. I’m heading out to visit an aged cousin. That will be much more satisfying than watching 300-pound behemoths do deadly damage to each others’ bodies and brains while America adds to its unfortunate obesity and alcohol abuse. And there won’t be much traffic.