Suppose nobody watched
Imagine if nobody watched – just one game, one time. It would probably cause the failure of the National Football League, and fulfill the frequent prophecies of the end of the world.
We refer, of course, to the controversy surrounding the Super Bowl. A recent study of 6,000 bars and grills between Jupiter and Miami revealed that not a single person above the age of reason believes God was responsible for deflating footballs in a recent Boston Patriots game. All believe it was cheating. Nobody believes that prominent members of the Patriots organization did not know about it. Most fans are concerned; some are outraged.
So what do we, as a nation, do about it? Nothing. We tune in to watch the Super Bowl and before that we audit countless television and radio reports, and read everything written about the subject. But suppose, however, people just said no. They skipped the game, didn’t read anything about the controversy and did not even know who won.
Imagine if just one world leader, say President Obama, or Madonna, or Dave Barry, stood up and screamed, “We’re not taking it anymore!” and called for a total boycott of this event. We would do it, except nobody reads this blog. You need a world leader to engineer something like this.
Imagine if it happened. All of those expensive TV commercials would be seen by no one. All of those lizards and ducks that are featured in those stupid spots would quack into a vacuum. The thousands of people who pay hundreds of dollars for tickets would not show up; all of those hotel rooms would be canceled. The airlines would be asked for refunds. Rental cars would sit mournfully on their lots. Millions of dollars would be lost. Six thousand bars and grills between Jupiter and Miami would be empty for a day. The economy would collapse.
We happened to see one Super Bowl live. It was in 1971 between the Baltimore Colts and somebody else. The Colts won on a late field goal. It showed what an impact one game can have on a career. Don Shula had built the Colts into a power, but he did not coach that day. He had moved to Miami and nobody has heard from him since.
Over the years, however, we have decided the game is not all that important. Who really cares about the Patriots against the Seahawks, except that Ken Behring, Tamarac’s founder, once owned the latter? This is not a real rivalry, not like, say, the Patriots playing Boston College, or Tufts or Wellesley College, which would be natural local rivals. It cannot compare with La Salle vs. St. Joe tonight at Tom Gola Arena; La Salle favored by six; or, the big soccer game tonight at Brian Piccolo Stadium between St. Thomas and Cypress Bay. No line available at press time.
Now these are events the world should watch, and we can only make one because of the big snowstorm up north. But come Sunday, we plan a one-person boycott of the Super Bowl. On principle, we will not watch that game. Of course, we lie a lot.