SKIPPING THE SUPER BOWL

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. It’s the day after and I have no regrets. Didn’t see the commercials. Missed Bad Bunny. Definitely didn’t check out Kid Rock.

 

I skipped it all and I feel amazing. Or, I feel my normal self, at least. 

 

I haven’t watched the Super Bowl since at least 1986. That’s right. Four decades. It’s not much of a statement to skip the Super Bowl when I live in Vancouver, Canada. Stating the obvious, the Super Bowl is very American. As described in yesterday’s New York Times, it’s “that most red-white-and-blue of cultural moments.” Canadians aren’t so big on American moments right now. Canadians have their own football league, not that I care much about that either.

 

So, yeah, watching football is only slightly more interesting to me than golf. Okay, no, it’s considerably better than watching golf. But isn’t everything?

 

Back in the ’80s, I lived in Texas. At the time, it was treasonous not to cheer for the Dallas Cowboys. (I taught only minutes away from the stadium.) Mostly, I skipped watching their games, too. In fact, I timed Sunday grocery shopping for when the Cowboys were on TV. It meant the aisles were clear and there was no line at the checkout. Well played, I’d tell myself. Well played.

 

I realize I sound like a gay cliché, not watching football. But my relationship with the sport is more complicated than that. I will watch bits of college football games. I like the fast play, the marching bands, the cheering traditions, the students in the stands wearing their school colours. During my first three years attending TCU—“Go Frogs!”—in Fort Worth, Texas, I attended thirty-two out of thirty-three games, home and away. I travelled to Kansas, Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee as well as all over Texas. I’ve gone to several bowl games featuring my team. I even paid $1,000 for a ticket to the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2011. Including the parade, it was worth it as a lifetime memory. (We won!) And, yes, I do expect to go to another TCU game someday…just not for a thousand bucks.

 

So watching some kind of football is considerably better than watching golf.

 

If I were going to watch a Super Bowl, yesterday’s might have been the one. Go, Seahawks. I like the city of Seattle a lot. I know I could live there if an opportunity or need arose. I’m happy for the city that its team finally won its first Super Bowl. I’m happy they get to have a parade. (That’s what happens, isn’t it? Isn’t that what they’re vying for…which city gets to calendar an extra parade? I did say I like marching bands. (Parades without roses, not so much.))

 

Pre-1987, I went to several Super Bowl parties. There were always two groups in attendance: (1) the sit-on-the-edge-of-the-sofa dudes who screamed at the television screen and high-fived each other as if they’d actually been on the field and helped make that touchdown happen, and (2) the rest of us who sat around, the screen barely in view, chatting about work, (non) dating, the latest movies and wondering if Brad would go berserk if any of us said his facepainting was “nice makeup.” Occasionally, the two groups would connect at the food table, stocking up on Doritos with bean dip and a surprisingly awesome cheese dip made from Velveeta and a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes. For the most part though, it was two separate parties in one household. 

 

I decided to stop watching NFL football in the fall of 1987. That’s when the players went on strike. Yes, they wanted more pay. Greed, I told myself. While $3.2 million is currently the average salary, in 1987, players earned an average of somewhere between $212,000 and $230,000…still A LOT of money back in the good old days before we knew anything about CTE. 

 

I was offended that obscenely paid football players wanted more. (Yes, I’m sure the team owners were making even more obscene amounts but the divide between the 1% and everyone else has always been outrageous.) All I knew was that I was working my butt off in a noble profession as a special education teacher and, with my own pay raise, I was making $14,000 per year….not a lot of money back then. These striking football players were making FIFTEEN TIMES more money than me. Something told me that this was f#@ked up. I turned my back on the NFL and have never regretted it. 

 

I don’t even watch the halftime shows. Sorry, Madonna. (See, I’m not a total gay cliché.)

 

I’ve never had a fear of missing out. If there’s a wardrobe malfunction, I’ll read about it the next day. If there’s an epic commercial—come on folks, watching commercials shouldn’t be a highlight—I can try to catch it on YouTube although it may not play in my region since I don’t live in the United States.

 

And speaking of the U.S., I’m more than tired about how everything gets politicized there, so much so that there were competing halftime shows. Good god, let Bad Bunny say or do something about immigration and, if you don’t like it, go double dip your Dorito in that Velveeta dip. Choosing to not watch something is easy, folks. I’ve been not watching for four decades.

 

I like having my Sunday afternoons free. (It gives me more time to read Sunday’s New York Times.) I like having Monday nights clear as well as whenever the NFL schedules other televised games…Thursdays? Saturdays? Really, I don’t care enough to look it up. 

 

So another Super Bowl come and gone. Hoopla over. Except for that parade. Time to move on to more important things like whether I should watch Hamnet before the Oscars. I’m not feeling it, but I’m sure it too is better than golf…and that Melania flick.