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<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class="elementToProof">1/29/1999</span></div>
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This is the second part of a five part series looking back on the Superness of Super Sunday in America</div>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">SPORT AND SOCIETY FOR ARETE </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;" align="center"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">JANUARY 29, 1999 </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">ESPN is calling it their "blow out the budget coverage." FOX promises that this will be the biggest presentation ever with over
seven hours of pre-game programming. A </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Thirty second advertising spot will cost a $1.6M which comes to a mere $53,333 per second and represents a 28% increase over
last year's bargain rates. </span></p>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">With all this talk of money and excess it could only be the Super Bowl, the American version of the mid-winter festival of light,
where the light comes not from the sun but from the glitter of gold. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Like those who worship the sun, Americans who worship football, money and excess take this opportunity in dead of winter to
pay tribute to the notion that sheer waste is the highest form of display. Thorstein Veblen would love this validation of his theories explaining the behavior of the leisure classes. The only major difference is that by the end of the 20th century the leisured
classes have grown to become the leisured society. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Veblen described the styles of conspicuous consumption, conspicuous leisure and conspicuous waste as the means by which the
leisured classes display their wealth to one another and to the lesser beings in their society. In the late 20th century with the maturing of the Super Bowl into a national holiday, the upper classes display their wealth to one another while American society
at large displays its wealth to the world. </span></p>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">On a planet plagued by collapsed and collapsing economies, the ravages of war and malnutrition, and the human struggle for survival,
Americans this weekend will launch into levels of consumption that challenge the boundaries of the merely vulgar and obscene. </span></p>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">FOX had little problem selling its commercial spots for the Super Bowl game telecast at a total of some $93M and when you add
the pre- and post-game commercial sales the total reaches $150M. This of course is only the cost of running the commercials which cost millions and millions more to produce. Production values are high because the audience is so large as seven percent of that
audience is said to tune in only to watch the commercials. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">But wait there's more. It seems that the Anheuser-Busch brewing company paid $2M per thirty seconds to guarantee exclusivity
of commercials in the beer category. No other beer company will be allowed to buy commercial time for the telecast. Anheuser-Busch will run nine spots totally five minutes and fifteen seconds. That would be a total of $21M for the package plus production costs. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The beer peddlers will tell you that it is worth every million as the Super Bowl does so well what television is designed to
do; bring millions of people together to sell them something. The beauty of the Super Bowl is that it brings together not just a huge audience but one that is top heavy with prime age beer drinkers. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Some of the action has also moved to the World Wide Web where the 11th Annual Bud Bowl (that should be Bud Bowl XI) will be
staged. The struggle this year will be at </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">www.budbowl.com keeping with the technological trends of our time. It will take place at halftime as part of a giveaway of electronics
items. And if you are so inclined you can bet on this game in Vegas. Astonishingly there is a line on Bud versus Bud-Light. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Merchandise sales is another area of enormous lower level consumer mania. Genesis Direct of New Jersey a national distributor
of team merchandise is reporting that Bronco sales are going through the roof topping any of their previous Super Bowl appearances. That odd form of merchandise called "collectibles" featuring Terrell Davis and John Elway are very hot items. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The signed Bronco jerseys of these two stars sell for $450. An Elway signed helmet goes for $325 while one signed by Davis is
$225. Five thousand dollars will bring you a lithograph print of the Bronco team photo. A Super Bowl XXXIII football signed by Elway is only $325. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">All of this merchandise as well as that for the Atlanta Falcons is readily available at any number of web sites, along with
all manner of Super Bowl merchandise. Americans will spend millions of dollars during this festival for such items. Joy Athletic of Palm Beach projects the sale of $3M worth of Super Bowl shirts during this week. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Where there were only a few web sites three years ago, now there is an endless supply of them. If you started surfing today
you would be hard pressed to visit all the Super Bowl sites by the end of the millennium. Every major and minor television and radio web site has at least one Super Bowl page. Any search engine will put you in touch with a wide range of sites designed for
fans of varying philosophical and religious persuasions. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The Reggie White Christian Super Bowl Web page is still one of my all-time favorites coming as it does with pre-game, half-time,
and post-game prayer service suggestions. It appears that Reggie's godly location has not been updated since 1997 but then how much do Super Bowl prayers change each year anyway? </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Nothing matches the excesses that we are not allowed to see inside those corporate tents, in the corporate suites, and on board
the corporate yachts anchored in Biscayne Bay. Schmoozing is taken to new levels as clients are entertained, executives are rewarded for their hard work, and politicians are oiled for future use. For those who prefer terra firma the attractions of South Beach
will more than sate the wide variety of human appetites. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Some 200 corporations will take part in the Super Bowl celebration in some way. The large ones will fly in hundreds of employees
and spent up to $5M. Smaller companies will wine and dine clients at five-figure costs. NFL Properties has reserved 3,000 hotel rooms, and those rooms are at premium rates. There will be thirty-five corporate tents set up in Miami near the stadium. When this
practice began in 1984 there were 12 tents in Tampa. The excess just keeps on growing. </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">It is truly a great day; a tribute to American life at the end of this millennium; a notice given to the rest of the world about
who has the wealth and who aims to keep it. An invitation to all to share vicariously in the pleasures of imperial decadence at the end of the American Century. </span></p>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Thorstein Veblen, we salute you! </span></p>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">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. </span></p>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The following week I offered this postscript: </span></p>
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<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Other than a sense of symmetry there was nothing particularly memorable about this year's version of the Super Bowl. Eugene
Robinson who brought the dominant political symbol of the past year to center stage in Miami supplied the symmetry. News of oral sex influenced the Super Bowl almost as much as it has dominated American politics. The football season of Clinton-Lewinsky ended
most appropriately. (Robinson was arrested for soliciting oral sex from an undercover police officer the night before the game) </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In a footnote Eugene Robinson has said he will return the Bart Starr Award given to persons of high moral character by Athletes-in-Action.
In recognition of Robinson's action the House Judiciary Committee has voted him the William Jefferson Clinton Award. </span></p>
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