Why I Call it the "Super Bowel"

Unlike the rest of the free world, I hate the Super Bowl ®©TM. Why? Because it takes everything that is wrong with America and everything that is wrong with the great sport of football and sequesters it into an artificial arena of ornate consumption.

I’m a purist. I like football outside, on grass in the cold. A good team can adjust, play with the circumstances. Wind, rain, snow, sleet—how a team can match additional challenges can elevate a poor team or destroy one with a reasonable record (see “greatest show on turf”). Real fans will show up in the frozen tundra. It is a way to weed out the skybox pussies and air-conditioned season ticket holders. It is a way to fill the stands with the dedicated fortitude of people committed to the activity.

The Super Bowl ®©TM sucks because it will always and forever be relegated to a domed superarena, a corporate-name-bearing sterile monstrosity built with the first priority of making money. Games will forever be played on fake grass at 70°F. No wind. No rain.

I call it the Super Bowel because it is the last stop along the productive path that is football season, yet the products within are the most offensive. All of the good stuff has been removed and all that is left is the remains of a great season, polluted with consumerism and commercial exploitation.

Everyone was offended at Justin Timberlake pulling off Janet Jackson’s brassiere. I was offended that Justin Timberlake was allowed in the same building as the The Super Bowl ®©TM! What is more patently offensive? This year fans will have to endure the Rolling Stones and some rap guy. What can be LESS football?

Then the NFL has a formal contract with Coor’s Light, the Official Beer of the NFL? Again a metaphor. Take something inherently good and dilute it to death for public consumption, then tell everyone that they will like it.

I won’t be watching the Super Bowel. I’ll be out in the woods with my dog and wife. It’s normally pretty empty as it is, we should have it all to ourselves.