[ARETE] Super Sunday Review #4 Super Bowl LIV

[richard crepeau]

This fourth Super Sunday Sport and Society is from 2020 and the focus is on the multiple Super Bowls that have been held in Miami. These nicely illustrate the growth of madness over the years in one of the hedonistic centers of the United States.
Enjoy,
Dick




SPORT AND SOCIETY FOR ARETE

February 1, 2020



It is time for America’s Mid-Winter Festival. Sunday is Super Sunday. It is Super Bowl LIV or 54 for you non-Romans. This is one of my favorite holidays, and, as usual, it will demonstrate that for all the hype over Christmas and New Year’s Eve, it is Super Sunday that showcases American consumerism and the ability to party more than any other day of the year. It embodies those terms from Thorstein Veblen such as “Conspicuous Consumption,” Conspicuous Waste,” and Conspicuous Leisure.”

This is not to say that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is a Santa Claus figure, but he does surface at the Super Bowl to give his assessment of the State of the League. He is not a Jolly Roger with a white beard, but rather a wooden figure displaying reverse charisma. Among the most important insights Goodell offered this year was that “The Rooney Rule” is not working. This past season there were three African American coaches, and it appears that number will remain the same next season. This is the kind of observation that demonstrates that the Commissioner has his finger on the pulse of the NFL.

But, I digress. It is Super Bowl week, and the game is heading into Miami for the eleventh time in its history, and the first time in ten years. Three of the first five Super Bowls were in Miami, and they set the bar for Super Bowl excess and exaggeration.

Leading the party scene were those parties hosted by the Skin Mags: The Playboy Party and the Maxim Party. Always a major attraction is the Commissioner’s Party, this year carrying the title of the “Commissioner’s Ball.” Shaq’s Fun House has become a favorite; Derek Jeter is hosting a cocktail party; and Rob Gronkowski is hosting “Gronk Beach” featuring the best of food and music of Miami. Super Saturday Night hosted by AT&T, formerly the DirecTV party, is touted as the premier event of Super Bowl Week with “Corporate Sponsors, Celebrities, VIP’s, and General Admission guests with a once-in-a-lifetime experience through high-end hospitality and A-List Talent.”

Looking back on the previous ten Miami Super Bowls, it is clear that the basic character of the Super Bowl and Super Bowl Week was set in those early years in Miami. Super Bowl II and III were said to have offered a major boost to the local economy, a questionable claim that has been made for every Super Bowl since. Hotels were booked solid in mid-January, traditionally a period of lull between the holidays and the winter tourist season. Eastern Airlines reported a major uptick in business as they benefited from package deals out of the Northeast. At Super Bowl II, one-third of all spectators were from the New York area. The best restaurants had waiting lists, and vendors of all manner of merchandise prospered. For New York Jets fans not able to attend the game in Miami, parties were held in restaurants, bars, and homes across the New York area.

Super Bowl II, under the direction of the master-marketer Pete Rozelle sold warm weather, the beach, the golf, and the resorts of Miami. The concept was that this would be a gala weekend regardless of what teams were playing. The target audiences were television advertisers, sponsors, media organizations, sporting goods manufacturers, and anyone else doing business with the NFL. The Super Bowl was promoted as a big mid-winter event, a must attend venue, and a gala celebration lasting through the weekend. Rozelle made sure all tickets were sold and proclaimed a sellout at mid-week. He then set the tone for the weekend with the Commissioner’s Party by invitation only.

Super Bowl III produced one of the best-known moments in Super Bowl history. On Thursday night before the game, the Miami Touchdown Club was honoring Joe Namath as Player of the Year. Responding to a heckler from the back of the room who shouted, “We’re going to kick your ass,” Namath shouted back, “Hey, I got news for you. We’re gonna win the game. I guarantee it.”

Super Bowl III achieved “Superness,” and Corporate America had become major participants.

For the first time, at Super Bowl V, the “blackout rule” was challenged in court. Ellis Rubin, a Miami attorney, sought to have the blackout lifted by the courts. It was the first major challenge to the blackout and the beginning of the end for the rule, at least for games that were sell outs. Halftime entertainment still featured marching bands, and the celebrity entertainer was former Miss Oklahoma, Anita Bryant.

Super Bowl X celebrated the Bicentennial in both the pregame and halftime shows. “Up With People” was the featured entertainment in the first of four halftime appearances. Gone were the marching bands. The Bicentennial Logo was plastered all over the stadium, the programs, and player uniforms. To underline the new pairing of the Super Bowl with patriotism, the NFL sponsored essay competitions for high school students on the theme “The Role of the NFL in American History.” More to the point, the NFL was making history in Miami in this 10th edition of the Super Bowl.

At Super Bowl XVIX, Miami was the scene of another transformation of the halftime show. Disney productions used Indiana Jones, Patti LaBelle, the Lombardi Trophy, temple guards, Tony Bennett, and a song from “The Lion King” to create an extravaganza of themed cacophony. This set a new template for halftime shows where the spectacular and the banal became the necessary.

At the end of the century when Super Bowl XXXIII returned to Miami, the levels of wealth and decadence hit a new level. The excesses in over 200 corporate tents were hidden from view; the corporate suites specializing in conspicuous consumption were in full operation; and Biscayne Bay was paved over with corporate yachts.

On South Beach, clearly a “destination” at the end of the century, a wide variety of human appetites were sated. Eugene Robinson became a marker for this reality when he was arrested the night before the game for soliciting oral sex from a police officer. Earlier in the day, he had received the Bart Starr Award given to someone of high moral character by the Athletes-in-Action. Quickly a joke circulated that Robinson was a member of Athletes-Looking-for-Action.

If you couldn’t actually be in Miami for the Super Bowl, you could share vicariously in the pleasures of imperial decadence at the end of The American Century, which wasn’t ending, just shifting gears.

As the Super Bowl returns to Miami this weekend, not much has changed except the scale of the event and the opportunities to wallow in the absurd levels of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous waste. All the parties are in place, and South Beach is ready for whatever might eventuate. And we know that could be anything because this is the Super Bowl, America’s Mid-Winter National Holiday of Excess.

More is never enough.

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 2020 by Richard C. Crepeau















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