Editorial of February 8, 2024
Great Bowls of Fire
We have arrived. The 2023 NFL season is over but for the final touchdowns, which will come to us this Sunday when the American Football Conference champs Kansas City Chiefs meet the National Football Conference champs San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas. This is the 58th annual Super Bowl, since 1966 the closing game of every NFL season. If all is true in Super Bowl history, this game, which is in fact no different from all those of the many preceding seasons, will rank among the most watched single sporting events in the history of television, commanding, perhaps, the largest audience among all broadcasts in America during the year. And this is a game, just one game, of football.
The Chiefs were founded in Dallas, Texas by Lamar Hunt, whose family still owns the team. They moved to Kansas City in 1963 and played in the first Super Bowl, in 1966, losing to the Green Bay Packers and their beloved, remarkable coach, Vince Lombardi. Since that epic battle, Kansas City has played in four more Super Bowls, winning three, in 1970, 2020 (against the 49ers) and 2023, and losing in 2021. As the defending champions they are on tap to be formidable.
The Forty-niners have been around since 1946 and they, too, still have their founding family, the Yorks, at their head. They are the sixth most valuable team in the NFL, with a worth estimated at $5.2 billion, and the twelfth most valuable team in the world. They are as well one of the most successful teams in NFL history, with five Super Bowl wins and two losses, one of which, four years ago, was to the Kansas City Chiefs. They, too, are looking impressive.
The big game will be played in the 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium, with a spot for two, under the dome but near the end zone, selling at $50.00 short of $7,000.00, not even close to the $7 million for a 30-second commercial on CBS that will be seen from couches all around the world. The ticket price does not include travel, hotel, nourishment or a casino stop, but it does include the National Anthem, sung by Reba McEntire, and a half-hour halftime show performance by Usher, which promises to be somewhat riveting, right up there with Taylor Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour—151 shows across five continents, surpassing $1 billion. Both shows can lay claim to the most-watched musical performance of the year.
Superlatives all. But this is football, a graceful dance with a moving ball with a goal on a green field in front of cheering crowds, rather like the Mesoamerican ball game that was first played around 1650 BC. Thought to be ritualistic as well as recreational, later Mayan and Aztec ball games served to defuse or resolve conflicts or to settle disputes between kingdoms, often with a sacrifice in the end.
Our football is a little different, although there have been many major casualties, or sacrifices—sprains, tears, breaks, concussions—and even some deaths, mostly caused by multiple head injuries. It’s not the safest sport, but still it goes on and it has retained its substantial fan base.
There’s one more thing about football: It reaches across the aisle. This Sunday, late in the afternoon, is possibly the first time in many months that this entire country has been able to come together to watch. United. That’s a good feeling, if only for a few hours. Thank you, Super Bowl LVIII.