Me vs The Superbowl

I've frankly never really been into sports. Especially team sports. It's not that I don't like being a team player (well...sort of), but I've always really, really been shit at them.  

I can climb a rock face, stand on top of a mountain, and feel great, but under no circumstances should you hand me a ball and have any expectations that I will effectively achieve anything with it. There will be no passing, no proper form dribbling, and certainly no accurate shooting. 

My most common experience when playing team sports with balls is getting hit in the face. Like, frequently. Honestly, my hand eye coordination is akin to that of a toddler. I have been hit in the face by basketballs, baseballs, soccer balls, and volley balls. I don't like sports. 

This dislike of team sports tends to extend to watching them on tv as well. Not that this is in any way terribly surprising....don't like playing them, don't really feel like spending time I can't get back watching them either. However, and this is a big 'however', I understand that other people DO like watching sports. Why, I can't quite fathom, but they do. And the Superbowl seems to be one of the more popular events. 

Now, yes, I realize this is a big game, but football? Seriously? I just can't wrap my head around it. Hockey moves quickly, and at times, can be tolerably exciting to watch. The rules are more or less easy to follow. 

Football not so much. It's a slow game with little bursts of activity here and there followed by interminable consultation and tv heads talking at each other. My favorite quote of the night came from the overexcited announcer who proudly told us that, among other things, one team would be leaving here a winner tonight. Well, you don't fucking say! It's not like they are going call it a draw at the end of the night and all go out for a tie beer. 

And then there is the problem with football's inability to adhere to a normal person's understanding of time. I can't tell you how excited I get when I see there is only 6 and a half minutes of play left before the game ends. For those of you who don't know, 6 minutes of football time is the equivalent of 32 hours of normal person time. Yes. That's right. 32 hours. 

There are also the ads. Some of them are slightly more entertaining than usual, and it's nice to see that the advertising companies manage to not just phone it in at least once a year, and actually create something that doesn't make you wonder if the focus group was sleeping when they were testing the ads.  That said, they are still just commercials. I don't need a clever ad to sell me toenail fungus medication. Really. It's fucking ridiculous. 

The only real perk I see to the Superbowl over any other average, mind numbing game, is that people throw big parties. I've only been to a couple, and the one we went to this year was a good time.  Good food, good friends, and enough other conversations going on that I didn't have to actually watch the game. It's also pretty entertaining to watch a room full of adults teach my one year old to boo the offending team.

And, as a pleasant surprise, I will even admit to enjoying the last 32 seconds* of the game (*read: 10 minutes in real person time). Plus the half time show didn't suck. 

Go Sports Team! Yay.