[ARETE] Sport and Society - Tampa and the Super Bowl

[richard crepeau]

SPORT AND SOCIETY FOR ARETE

JANUARY 31, 2021



Super Bowl LV is a week away, and in this strangest of football seasons in NFL History, Tampa will be hosting the Super Bowl for the fifth time. The first was Super Bowl XVIII in 1984. By that time the Super Bowl was beginning to live up to its name, and it was taking on the appearance of a larger-than-life event akin to a mid-winter National Holiday. It was beginning to show its major characteristics of Conspicuous Consumption and Conspicuous Waste, and it had developed the identity of a corporate event catering to mid-level executives. Each year it got bigger and better both on the ground and on television.

The Super Bowl was the place to be seen. At the first of Tampa’s Super Bowls, eight-hundred private jets were cleared for landing at Tampa area airports. The Nissan Corporation spent $2M on a five-day Caribbean cruise for 300 dealers and their spouses, starting a trend, as Ford spent $1M the following year to bring its top dealers to Super Bowl XIX in Palo Alto, California.

The 1984 game is best remembered for the Apple Computer Commercial produced by Ridley Scott with an Orwellian theme. The commercial had pre-tested poorly and many thought Steve Jobs was foolish to run it. Immediately after airing, it was proclaimed “pure genius,” a judgement affirmed when $4.6M worth of computers were sold in six hours. Seventy-two thousand Macs sold over the next 100 days.

The cost of running a 30-second spot in the 1984 telecast was just over a half-million dollars. At Super Bowl I the coast had been $37,500 for thirty seconds. In 1991 for Super Bowl XXV, the next Tampa Super Bowl, the cost had moved up slightly to $850,000. In 2001 the thirty-second spot had surpassed $2M, and in 2009 the price tag was just shy of $3M. Next week at Super Bowl LV the price is $5.6M for a thirty second spot. These numbers offer one measure of Super Bowl growth over the course of Tampa’s four host city opportunities.

The Super Bowl Halftime Show had acquired some interest early in Super Bowl history, and by the time of Tampa’s first hosting in 1984 Disney had taken over the production of the show. That year the theme was Disney’s Sparkling Salute to the Silver Screen. CBS anchor Phyllis George introduced 2100 performers as “the biggest and most glittering Halftime Show in Super Bowl History.” The only glitch came near the end when a live fragment from the fireworks spectacular landed in the crowd slightly burning one spectator on the hand.

In Tampa in 1991 Super Bowl XXV produced one of the most memorable moments in Super Bowl History. Ten days into the First Gulf War, Desert Storm, there was a strong scent of patriotism in the Super Bowl air as Whitney Houston sang the National Anthem. Her rendition struck a powerful patriotic chord with the crowd and the television audience, and to this day it is considered by many to be the greatest performance of the National Anthem in history, and not just in the history of the Super Bowl. Others see it as marking the beginning of the NFL’s effort to enhance its brand by tying itself to patriotic militarism.

The halftime show was overshadowed by Houston’s performance, and by the fact that the show was preempted on television by a Gulf War news update. This Disney production was notable as the first to put the halftime show on the pop culture map, according to The Atlantic. The popular New Kids on the Bloc performed alongside Disney characters and a few thousand local children. “The crowd certainly enjoyed the show, as veritable squeals erupt when the boy band emerges to perform.” ABC offered an edited taped version of the show at the end of the Super Bowl telecast.

Ten years later at Super Bowl XXXV, the halftime show was titled The Kings of Rock and Pop starring Aerosmith and NSYNC, and featured appearances by Mary J. Blige, Brittney Spears, Nelly, and others. The halftime show at Super Bowl XLIII, the fourth hosted in Tampa, was even bigger with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band the only performers. Although not in the Janet Jackson league, Springsteen’s crotch thrust during the show is the thing remembered most by some of his fans and some of his critics.

By the time of Super Bowl XXV the atmosphere of holiday celebration surrounding the Super Bowl was reaching new heights. Not only was television commercial cost growing, but the nature of television coverage and the uses of new technology were growing as well. At times it seemed the networks were in an arms race. At Super Bowl II CBS used twelve cameras and four video machines for replay. For Super Bowl XXV, ABC deployed 22 cameras on the ground and in the air. Ten years later when the Super Bowl returned to Tampa, CBS used 34 cameras and introduced freeze-frame technology.

As previously noted, two new items of Conspicuous Consumption were part of the Super Bowl XVIII scene in Tampa. There were nine corporate tents set up where clients could be wined and dined before and after the game. Two Tampa Super Bowls later, at Super Bowl XXXV, the tents were bigger and better. The largest was 100’ x 360’ and could accommodate 1500 people. This climate-controlled beauty was carpeted, contained giant screen TVs, and a giant ships mast.

A tent complete with food and entertainment can cost a company as much as $750,000, while added features might run the price to $1.5M. Coca-Cola, Ford and Prudential are noted for the opulence of their tents. In one, a staff of 500 served such entrees as Lower Keys Conch Chowder, prime rib and salmon, upscale brands of liquor. Maryland crab cakes ($475 per 50 guests) or leg of lamb ($250). Fresh popcorn was available $6.50 per person. Several tents had high-priced performers. All of this was set in an 800,000 square foot corporate hospitality area that was transformed into a faux-beach with Macaw statues, lifeguard chairs, and a sand castle.

As in 1984, Tampa airports were overrun with private jets and helicopters leading some to conclude that if you didn’t arrive at the Super Bowl by private jet, then you probably should not come at all. If arriving through the air wasn’t posh enough, then you could opt for “Silent Wings II,” a 104-foot yacht with a staff of four including a gourmet chef. This “package” included six luxury box seats for the game and a Rolls-Royce including chauffer. The price tag was $100,000 tax deductible dollars.

In the sex and the Super Bowl department, Tampa offered a plethora of prostitutes, many of whom arrived from out of town. Tampa was best known for its lap dancers who overpopulated the clubs on Dale Mabry Highway. There would have been little surprise if Caligula had appeared among the clubbers.

To try to contain the action the city introduced a six-foot rule on nude dancers, probably an impossible task for the police. Some called this a "decent interval," while others cried repression and a violation of freedom of expression.

Not to be overshadowed in the excess sweepstakes the City of Tampa dropped $350,000 into flowers and other landscape enhancements for public properties; while the county was paying “Team Sandtastic” of Sarasota $628,000 to create a Super Bowl Sand Montage in Sand Key Park. Two 30-foot-tall NFL helmets with logos of the Ravens and Giants on either side of the Lombardi Trophy were surrounded by 29 other helmets 6-feet in height. All sculpted of sand, of course.

In 2009 Tampa hosted Super Bowl XLIII, its fourth opportunity to lead the national consumption celebration. It had, of course, to top its own earlier efforts as well as those other festivals of excess that preceded them. The problem facing Tampa in this respect was the fact that this Super Bowl was occurring in the midst of a sharp economic downturn. Americans were spending less because they had less to spend.

At Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix, Jets.com booked 55 game packages. Those numbers were down considerably in Tampa. Fewer corporate jets were in evidence and some hotel rooms remained available. Some of the major parties including the Playboy Party and the Sports Illustrated Party were cancelled. Nevertheless, in the end the scene did not look all that different from any other year. Sports Illustrated reported that Tampa lived up to its reputation as “a nexus of night life and professional sport” with more than an adequate number of casinos and strippers.

NBC had no problem selling out its commercial time even with the arrival of the $3M thirty-second spot. Among the big-ticket events was the Gridiron Greats Dinner of Champions for $1,000 each, and the Inside the Huddle Party at Shula's Steak House for $7000 with one Super Bowl Ticket included. The Maxim Party more than filled the skin-gap left by the departure of Playboy. The Leigh Steinberg party was hosted on Saturday afternoon at the Lowry Park Zoo where a video link was set up to connect celebrities and the troops serving in Iraq.

The Mons Venus Strip Club was confident that it could repeat the major business it did at Super Bowl XXXV, and Tampa would prove once again that it was the capital of the lap dance. Their top dancer who had earned $6000 in four days was coming out of retirement in anticipation that the Super Bowl would be raining money again. For those who preferred closer contact, Craiglist Escort Service illustrated Adam Smith’s well-known law of supply and demand in the flesh.

It has generally been the practice of Super Bowl critics to rate the performance of host cities in comparison to others or in cases like Tampa, in comparison to itself. In this year of Covid-19, it will be more than a little difficult for Tampa to best its recent efforts and those of the past dozen years. One thing we do know is that if it fails, it will not be because of a lack of will or effort. At this moment the ATM and credit card terminals are racking up the dollars as the consumers are doing what they do best at every Super Bowl.

On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau reminding you that you don’t have to be a good sport to be a bad loser.



Copyright 2021 by Richard C. Crepeau



**** This material is drawn from “Sport and Society” pieces written at the time of Tampa’s hosting of a Super Bowl; and from my book NFL Football: A History of America’s New National Pastime, the second edition published by the University Illinois Press in 2020 to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the NFL.





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