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Sunday, January 28, 1996 Page:
I’m a semi-reluctant accomplice to XXX
XXXEverywhere you look, there they are: XXX. You’re getting sick of those
Xs, aren’t you? They’re driving you crazy, aren’t they? You’d like to take
those Xs and stick ’em someplace where you’d never have to look at them again,
wouldn’t you?
Time was, XXX was nothing more than a warning that some pornographer was
about to assault your sensibilities with an onslaught of unbridled sex — or
maybe bridled sex, depending on which pornographer was perpetrating the
onslaught.
But now, the XXX label means something altogether different. It signals an
onslaught, that’s for sure, but it’s an onslaught of uncontrollable,
unrelenting, unavoidable hype for the most over-hyped sporting event in the
history of the world: the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl XXX, to be specific — or Super Bowl 30, to those of us who
don’t count in Roman numerals.
Professional football’s 30th annual hypefest is almost more pervasive than
lying, cheating, scheming politicians. It’s everywhere: TV, radio, newspapers,
magazines, the aisles of your favorite supermarket. Shucks, I’ll bet you
couldn’t get to the chips and dips you bought for the big Super Bowl party
without climbing over a rack of Super Bowl XXX caps and T-shirts.
Don’t you wish you owned the copyright on XXX? You’d be up to your neck in
$$$.
In case you’ve been living in a cave the past two weeks and don’t know what
this is all about, I’ll fill you in.
The National Football League’s season-ending championship game, Super Bowl
XXX, will be played today in Tempe, Ariz., between the Dallas Cowboys and the
Pittsburgh Steelers. The game, of course, is virtually irrelevant, for the
Super Bowl has nothing to do with football; it has to do with marketing.
Which is why we can’t escape the dreaded XXX.
As long as there’s an unlimited supply of suckers, er, consumers who are
willing to buy XXX merchandise and patronize the car companies, brewers,
pizza-makers, razor-blade manufacturers and soft-drink peddlers who advertise
on the Super Bowl telecast, the marketers will keep shoving all this down our
throats.
We are, it is clear, willing accomplices in the hyping of the Super Bowl.
On the other hand, we don’t have to like something just because we’re
paying for it. Feel free to fling open the window and scream at the top of
your lungs: “&%*@& the Super Bowl!!!!!”
If football players can curse in public, why can’t the rest of us?
Many readers, I am sad to report, become indignant when their newspaper
gets caught up in the frenzy of a big-deal sporting event such as the Super
Bowl. Some of you are probably snarling at me this very minute because I’m
using up valuable space on the opinion pages with pointless commentary on
Super Bowl XXX.
Isn’t there enough Super Bowl chatter in the sports section, and even on
the front page of the paper, you’re wondering? Why contaminate a section of
the paper that is normally a safe haven from the trivia of professional
sports, you want to know?
Here’s why, though I’m almost ashamed to admit it: I’m a football fan, just
like all those other suckers, er, consumers whose gullibility helps bankroll
the Super Bowl hype year after year after year. I’m afflicted with Super Bowl
mania, just like the other 130 million or so Americans who are expected to
watch all or part of Super Bowl XXX.
Can you believe it — 130 million? That’s 26 million more than voted in the
last presidential election.
Maybe the president should have arranged to deliver his State of the Union
address during halftime.
Well, I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to predict the outcome of
the game, as if the outcome of the game had anything at all to do with the
hype that precedes it. Frankly, I’m much better at predicting election results
and Oscar winners than at guessing who will win athletic contests, but I’ll
give it my best shot.
Since the Dallas Cowboys have Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, and the
Pittsburgh Steelers don’t, I say the Cowboys will prevail. In fact, I’ll
predict the final score of Super Bowl XXX:
Cowboys XXXIV, Steelers XVII.
Bill Thompson, former associate editor of The Times Leader, is a columnist
with the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram.