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How Big Game Became America's Unofficial Holiday

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By DONNA KOEHN

dkoehn@tampatrib.com

Published: February 1, 2009

Updated: 02/01/2009 12:13 am

If you gave a guy a piece of paper and told him to design a holiday from scratch, it would look a lot like Super Bowl Sunday.

Think on it.

No irritating relatives, no long drives to get there. No giblet gravy that must be praised. No gifts to get wrong, like the Valentine chocolates for a dieting girlfriend or the size-small lingerie for a size-large wife. No neckties to dip in the caviar. No caviar.

Just the people he really likes, the big-screen TV, the La-Z-Boy and the junk food of his choosing, eaten off his belly if he so desires.

Beer. Football!

And maybe a nipple.

No wonder some consider Super Bowl Sunday America's best unofficial national holiday.

"There's almost an innocence to it," says Allen St. John, author of "The Billion Dollar Game: Behind the Scenes of the Greatest Day in American Sport" (Doubleday, 2009). "You've got 100 million people on this same strange day, watching this same strange phenomenon.

"Maybe this year, people won't be buying lots of big TVs, but I think there will be as many get-togethers as ever. There's so much bad stuff going on, we need a little respite from all of that. It's the one time of the year when Americans really stop, in a purely American way, for something you just can't ignore."

It wasn't always so, of course. No one set out to design an event to elevate Fritos and chicken wings, air hilarious commercials or rock with the cream of pop culture at halftime. Nobody consciously decided to give the lowly Crock-Pot its day in the sun.

In a sense, we created this celebration our own way.

"The Super Bowl is interesting because all the other holidays Americans celebrate are religious or quasi-religious or patriotic," St. John says. "A lot of time there's this sense of duty to that. Maybe your family brings stress, or discussions of politics.

"But you get to get together with friends for this. You don't have to cook a turkey. All you really have to do to get ready is buy junk food and turn on the TV."

Making It A Holiday

Robert Chute and his friends, avid Carolina Panthers fans, established www.super bowlmonday.com to promote the day after the Super Bowl as a national holiday. Visitors can sign a petition urging Congress to establish the day off work.

More than 16,000 have voted yes, only 600 or so say no.

"It is America's sport," Chute says. "Over the years, we've come to look forward to this day. Having at least the morning off the next day is best."

In his earlier years, that might have had a little something to do with beer.

"It used to be all beer, a little bit of food," he says. "Now it's a lot of food and a little bit of beer."

He and his friends grill outside, and everybody brings something edible to the party. This year, it's at his house.

"It's a blast," he says.

St. John calls the growth of the importance of the Super Bowl "the result of a series of happy accidents, seat-of-the-pants decisions made decades ago."

The first of these might have been the name itself.

Almost christened the snoozer "AFL-NFL Championship Game" in 1966, it instead got its name when billionaire Lamar Hunt noticed his kids playing with a bouncy Wham-O Super Ball. Super Ball - Super Bowl. Get it?

When then-National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle said it wasn't dignified enough, Hunt joked that it should be followed by Roman numerals.

Among the first halftime performers were Carol Channing at Super Bowl IV and the ever-chirpy Up With People in years X, XIV and XVI. Anita Bryant sang the national anthem in 1969.

But coming as it did in that dead zone between Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New Year's and anything else worth celebrating, the game offered a chance to inject a little fun in an otherwise dreary time of year - even for those who don't worship football.

And organizers realized that even men whose favorite team wasn't in it - as well as women - were beginning to tune in, too.

More Women Watching

In the past 20 years or so, the hoopla stepped up, red carpet posing was added, and pricey parties and interviews with celebrities became part of it all. Game day commentary began to walk the line between sophisticated enough for true fans and easy enough for first-timers.

"I guarantee you, men are not tuning in to see Hugh Laurie of 'House' talk about football," St. John says.

Viewership by women has increased each of the past five years, with more than 37.7 million watching in 2008.

By the mid-1990s, halftime shows had become extravaganzas, all the more miraculous for their big names and quick setup and takedowns. Performers experience large jumps in the sales of their music afterward.

In 2004's Nipplegate, a fresh-faced Justin Timberlake pulled the bodice from Janet Jackson's outfit, exposing her right breast. The outrage led to a series of less-buxom performers: Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty and this year, Bruce Springsteen. Not a nipple to ogle in the bunch. And you can count on knowing the words to their songs, because they are required by organizers to play at least some of their hits.

But what the game does for the popularity of football, Budweiser and rock stars, it also can do for everybody else. In trying times, with so many eyes watching, it has served as an unlikely avenue for building the nation's spirits.

In 1991, during the first Gulf War, Whitney Houston's rendition of the national anthem so moved viewers it reached No. 20 on the Billboard charts, the first time the anthem made it. That year, instead of the halftime show, a live war update aired. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Houston recording was released again, reaching No. 6.

Soulful singer Jennifer Hudson will perform the anthem today to begin the celebrity-rich festivities at Raymond James Stadium.

So pop open the beer and bags of chips. Plop the Rotel and Velveeta in the Crock-Pot. Settle into your T-shirt and recliner, and tell the friends not to bother knocking, just come on in.

Today's your holiday. And you probably have the best seat in town.

Reporter Donna Koehn can be reached at (813) 259-8264.

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