Super Bowl XLVII

It’s Super Bowl Sunday again. Yes, I’ll be watching. No, I don’t have a favorite team in this game (“my” team didn’t make it), but I will choose to root for the Baltimore Ravens. San Francisco has already won 5 Super Bowls to Baltimore’s one win. Baltimore is the underdog. And, Baltimore is an east coast team and I live on the east coast. It seems to add up to as good a reason to root for the Ravens as any.

It’s surprising how many people think the Super Bowl should be played on Saturday and/or moved to a more convenient (for them) time of day. A little thought will reveal why the game time is set at 6:30PM on a Sunday. Allow me to explain.

Although American football has a few fans here and there in other countries, the primary audience for the game is the American audience. To maximize advertising revenue, the game is played at a day and time that maximizes the number of viewers. Many people in America have to work on Saturday. The day of the week that the largest number of American workers have off is Sunday (the day on which 89% of NFL games are played).

Many Americans go to Sunday morning church services, so the game’s start time should be late enough to allow those people time to attend church and then get home, or wherever they intend to watch the game. America spans 6 time zones: Eastern Time, Central Time, Mountain Time, Pacific Time, Alaska Time, and Hawaii-Aleutian Time. A game time of 6:30PM on the east coast is 3:30PM on the west coast, 2:30PM in most of Alaska, and 1:30PM in Hawaii. With all the commercials and the halftime show, the game will probably run for about 4 hours or until 10:30PM on the east coast. If the game starts later, some viewers won’t have a reasonable sleep interval before their Monday morning commute to work. If the game starts earlier, some viewers in Hawaii and Alaska will be lost.

And there you have it: the reason the game is played when it is played. Of course, I could be completely wrong. Maybe someone simply threw a dart at a calendar.

As for critics who say the game is overly hyped: the Super Bowl has become a mini-Mardi Gras, a mini-Carnaval. It’s more than a game; it’s an excuse for people to get together and socialize, to drink (or not), to party, to have fun. Some people watch the game, some people watch the commercials. Some people go to a sports bar and enjoy the company of strangers who are all there for the same reason. The hype is part of the experience; some would say it’s a necessary part of the experience. It’s win-win: the host city receives tens of millions of dollars in tourism revenue, advertisers boost their brand to a huge audience, and millions of viewers have a good time. If it didn’t work for everybody, the Super Bowl might not exist.