I saw on ESPN early yesterday that the Super Bowl was going to be broadcast in 233 countries, and would also reach 220 US warships around the world.
I heard the unsurprising reports about people waiting outside bars in Green Bay and Pittsburgh, waiting for them to open.
I saw the clips of thousands of people watching the game on large screens outside Cowboy Stadium, having paid $200 to stand in the 40-degree weather and listen to the crowd cheer inside.
I saw the clips of uniformed servicemen and women in Afghanistan watching in a tent.
In church yesterday, the staff member giving announced mentioned each team's name and allowed those in the congregation who wanted to to cheer for their team.
I heard that President Obama watched the game with his wife, Michelle, and some 150 other special friends in the White House.
I know that companies pay $1 million for 30 seconds of airtime during the commercials.
There is nothing quite like the Super Bowl. No, it doesn't quite have the international appeal of the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics, but it is, without fail, the most-watched event on television every year. No awards show (Academy Awards, Grammys), talk show (Oprah, Dr. Phil), game show (Jeopardy), series (Lost, 24, Gossip Girl) or reality show (American Idol, Dancing With the Stars) can compete with the Super Bowl. It's bigger than all of them. Same goes with other big sporting events. The Stanley Cup Finals, the NBA Finals, the Kentucky Derby, the World Series, any golf or tennis or NASCAR championship event-they all pale compared to the championship game of America's most-watched sport.
Indeed, Super Bowl 44, last year's scintillating contest between the eventual-winner New Orleans Saints, and early-favorite Indianapolis Colts, became the most-watched television event, ever, passing the final episode of MASH in the record books.
There's a lot of glitz and glamour to the Super Bowl. Last night, Christina Aguilera, a Grammy-winning singer who's been popular for at least 12 years, and appeared in a recent Golden-Globe-nominated movie, Burlesque, sang the National Anthem. As you've probably heard, she botched the lyrics. And probably 300 million people saw her do it.
The camera constantly panned to a murderer's row of famous people in attendance at last night's contest in Dallas, including Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, former president George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, actor John Travolta, and actress Cameron Diaz, who was shown feeding highly-paid baseball star boyfriend Alex Rodriguez.
The half-time show was a multi-colored, well-lit splash of energy, where the Black Eyed Peas performed while wearing slick, Tron: Legacy-type suits and dancers in similar garb flooded the field and performed their choreographed movies. R&B star Usher made a guest appearance during the performance to sing with Will.i.AM, and Fergie, the group's only female member, sang a few lines of "Sweet Child of Mine" to the accompaniment of Guns'n'Roses guitarist Slash (Here's the part where I'm thankful that the Peas kept it to their more mainstream hits, like "Pump It", "Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night", "Let's Get It Started" and "Where is the Love", rather than Fergie's risque anthem "My Humps"). The pizzaz of this fifteen-ish minute spectacle, which was greatly enhanced by the dancing and energy of the four main contestants, was a big contrast to the Half-Time Shows of recent years, which have included more classic rock acts like Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, The Who and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
One of the most special moments came when the crowd gave a long impromptu standing ovation to one Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, of the U.S. Army, the first living Medal of Honor winner since the Vietnam War. Giunta, in full dress, was there as a symbol of all servicemen and women at home and abroad.
The commercials were okay. Super Bowl commercials are so widely-lauded from past years and from anticipation that it's always hard to judge them in the moment. This year was a mixed bag, with silly, cheap Doritos commercials mixed with amusing, tongue-in-cheek beer commercials. I thought the best outright commercial was a Dr. House-and-random-little-boy parody of the famous "Mean" Joe Greene Coke commercial. It ended with the boy getting clocked in the head when Dr. House tossed his cane to him as a souvenir (in the original, Mean Joe tosses his jersey to the kid). Some of the other memorable commercials included a small pug knocking down a door to obtain Doritos from a taunting owner, Joan Rivers as a shapely new Godaddy.com girl, Bud Light product placements abounding in a swashbuckling movie scene, a car being transferred from people to aliens and through mystic portals to symbolize its appeal, a cute running chick being accidentally clocked in the head by a Pepsi Max can thrown by a bystander's jealous girlfriend, and a preview for the upcoming, amusingly-titled movie Cowboys & Aliens. One of the clips from the latter got my Uncle Phil to incredulously exclaim: "he jumped off a horse onto a UFO?!"
Yet none of these things could really diminish the quality of the game. It was a back-and-forth contest that, while the Packers never trailed, could easily have been won by the Steelers, who officially lost on an incompletion on 4th & 5 with 49 seconds left, trailing 31-25. There were no major plays that will be forever cemented in Super Bowl lore as in the last three ('07's Eli-Manning-to-David-Tyree's-helmet Miracle, '08's 100-yard interception return for touchdown by James Harrison, '09's 70-yard pick six by Tracy Porter off Peyton Manning), but there was a great deal of excitement, most of it coming from the arms of the two quarterbacks. Folks in Green Bay are familiar with this expression being used in a football context, but Aaron Rodgers proved himself the gunslinger type, unleashing long throws with pinpoint accuracy, including balls just over the shoulder and into the hands of his receivers. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh's bull-dog Ben Roethlisberger, a two-time Super Bowl winner, is a pistol-shot who runs around to avoid pressure before letting loose short, quick passes to his troop of receivers. It was when Roethlisberger tried to go long (numerous overthrown or misplaced passes, two crucial interceptions) that he came apart.
To our great fortune, however, whether you're a Steelers' fan or a Packers' fan, the Super Bowl was again a doozy, an easily-watchable contest that came down to the literal final minute and could have gone either way based on the 'coulda' factor of about a dozen plays. There were no big fights, no breathtaking injuries (though both teams, especially the Packers, lost a number of players to small but significant hurts) and some crucial penalties but not an overwhelming number of flying yellow flags.
The big question, for many, is now what to make of Aaron Rodgers. Statistically, he's been climbing the ladder toward the top of the quarterback heap, even in a generation of terrific signal-callers (yesterday's unanimous MVP winner Tom Brady, four-time MVP Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Phillip Rivers), and now he has a Super Bowl ring, a Super Bowl MVP award, and many records of his guts and greatness in tough spots. It's assumed that he has now climbed out from the shadow of his Green Bay predecessor, future Hall-of-Famer Brett Favre.
There are also question marks on the horizon concerning a potential lockout or strike for this season. After all the excitement of this year (and it was a lot), I know I am far from the only person who would be bitterly disappointed by such an event.
Anyway, Super Bowl 45 has come and gone, and here's what we have: the Packers with their 4th Super Bowl championship, first since '96, the Steelers with just their 2nd loss in 8 appearances in the big game, another quarterback Super Bowl MVP. This year feels a little anti-climactic for me, possibly because the team I was rooting for failed to win for the first time since 2005. But, in any case, with the excitement on the field, the small joy of seeing many recognizable faces indulging in the same pass-time we love, hearing some great music, laughing at random impromptu commercials, and spending time with friends and family, this annual event makes it all worthwhile.
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