Where Ravens Dare

So the ticker tape has been swept up, my tears mopped away, Ray Lewis has left the field and the UK’s 24 hour infatuation with the NFL and Superbowl has vanished as quickly as it occurred.

A wonderful game to watch and a real event, which is one of the many hundreds of reasons why I love the sport. I saw many differing opinions and statements from the UK watchers around this event including ‘Why are they wearing pads if they are so hard?’, ‘Why do they have such weird names?’ and ‘I’m going to bed.’ The latter I was almost in agreement with at half time.

There are two things that always get me thinking whenever we are ‘forced’ to care about an American event and that is why should we care? What can we learn? The former I don’t have an answer for, it isn’t a British sport, the rules are pretty complex and the amount of gear each player wears they could start a war in. However, does that mean we should criticize it? Give it a watch for 2 hours of your life, you may enjoy it. I’d probably prefer to watch that than the 0 – 0 draw I could have wasted my time viewing and then completely forgetting about.

What we can learn is the art of the spectacle and apply it to our sport of football. The League / Insert sponsors name here cup, who cares? The steeped in history FA cup? Top teams don’t even take full strength squads anymore. The Superbowl is a focal point, once a year your team may get a shot at winning it. Don’t get me wrong having a half time show sponsored by a drinks company is a little weird, but so too is having sponsors ribbons draping on our national cup.

So next time the Superbowl comes around stay up, enjoy a bit of tension and be really tired in the morning. Better than a hangover…