Not everyone cares about the Super Bowl

It’s Super Bowl week, all everyone is talking about… here in the United States. We Americans seem to forget that there’s the rest of the world out there and not everyone on the planet shares our zest and passion for a football game or Honey Boo Boo.

Last year I watched the Super Bowl in Tauranga. That’s a cute little beach town in New Zealand. I was hoping somebody closer to Los Angeles would invite me to their Super Bowl party but this was best offer I could find.

Seriously, I was on a cruise at the time. (Read all about it here and here.)

It was quite a different experience. First of all, it was “Super Bowl Monday” due to the time change. Secondly, walking around town there was only one bar that was showing it. I asked the owner if he expected a big crowd and he said no.

Fortunately, the ship did made arrangements to show the game live in their theater. So that’s where I and most of the passengers congregated. We watched the international feed. They carried NBC’s coverage, complete with Al Michaels (thank goodness) but not the U.S. commercials. Instead, during commercial breaks we were shown the same three ESPN promos over and over and over. You forget how important those commercials are to the whole Super Bowl experience. And you don’t realize how MUCH time is devoted to those spots. When they’d go to a commercial break you could get up, get something to eat, take a harbor tour of the town, and still get back before the next play.

The thing that struck me most though was the absolute marvel of modern communication. I was watching something that was going on halfway around the world and I was watching it live. It was not long ago when viewers in Hawaii would see network primetime shows one week after they aired in the states. The networks would literally ship them the films of the shows. That’s right, shows were still on film. An editor would splice in the commercials. Our 50th state was one giant SPOILER ALERT.   And now, I had a better view of the game than people who were actually there sitting in the stands. Equally amazing is that when I click “publish” this article will instantaneously be available to readers in Tauranga and everywhere else on the planet (except China and all those countries that block me). And even more remarkable is that some people WILL read it.

Like most folks in America, I will be watching the Super Bowl this Sunday. Hope burns eternal that someone will invite me to a party. But for those of you in the rest of the world who have the audacity to not give a shit just because it’s a big deal to us, have a great weekend. I trust you’ll find something to do.