The Superbowl has it all … football or no football<\/p>\n
Editor Suzanne Levy on her relationship with the biggest sport event in the U.S.<\/p>\n
The Super Bowl, to someone who a) grew up in the UK, and b) doesn\u2019t really get football, is a strange experience. <\/p>\n
Of course, I\u2019m talking American football, not English football, by the way. If England gets into the World Cup quarter final you might find me at 7 a.m. in a pub in Santa Monica drinking a nice cup of tea and cheering the TV.<\/p>\n
The Super Bowl is a national cultural event, and there\u2019s so much excitement running up to it, yet when it happens, the thing that everyone is fixated on is the thing you\u2019re least interested in. As in, the football \u2014 the men with padded shoulders who pile into a heap. I mean, I get the ones in the middle are doing something, but the ones at the edges are just for show, right?<\/p>\n
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All the running and the throwing and the tackling \u2026 well that just gets in the way of all the entertainment.<\/p>\n
OK, OK, I\u2019m kidding. I do get excited when a halfback grabs the ball and starts up the field, elbowing people out of the way, but even that can get a bit wearing when it happens over and over again. Just let the guy get to where he wants to go already!<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s where the Super Bowl is ideal. It comes with ready prepared breaks in the action, so there\u2019s no chance to get bored. There\u2019s the commercials. Over the years, some of them have been so great, like that one with the kid and the Force, and that Eminem Detroit one. <\/p>\n
Some, not so much. That\u2019s where I do my armchair critiquing. \u201cWell I hoped they paid him a whole boatload of money for that one, his credibility\u2019s down the toilet,\u201d or, \u201cOh come on, ad agency, for a million dollars per millisecond, that\u2019s all you can come up with?\u201d <\/p>\n
But it\u2019s the hope, the desire, that this moment you\u2019ll be blown out of your chair. Wait, that sounds a lot like watching football. Hmm.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the half time show, which I always watch. \u201cCall me when it starts!\u201d I yell at my family as I walk out to do some very important laundry folding. As the music begins, I rush back in. Lady Gaga, Beyonce and now \u2026 Bad Bunny. As I watch pure perfection, I keep telling myself, they\u2019re doing it live, in front of a billion people. They are not missing a damn note. Or step. Except that left shark. Hell, even the Weeknd won me over eventually.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the last quarter. I make sure I watch that. It\u2019s the psychodrama of it all. The looks on the coach\u2019s faces as they chew their gum, serious, determined. The fans, holding their breath. The commentators asking Tom Brady what it was like when he was doing it. And then.. the whistle blows. And one half of the stadium is ecstatic, giddy with delight, while the other half stares into the abyss. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy come to life. For all the commercials and the music, this really is the can\u2019t miss part, which brings me back year after year. Go Patriots! Go Seahawks! Let the game begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Superbowl has it all … football or no football Editor Suzanne Levy on her relationship with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,238588,596,114420,85,237683,238587],"class_list":{"0":"post-466538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-ex-pat","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-half-time-show","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-superbowl","15":"tag-suzanne-levy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}