The Super Bowl and U.S. Solipsism
In February 2007, I was in New Zealand when Super Bowl XLI was played between the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. At the time, I assumed that people all around the world would be tuning in to see this most important of U.S. rituals. After all, I reasoned, the U.S. was arguably the most powerful nation in the world--who wouldn't be interested in seeing the highlights of our favorite past time?
Due to the time difference, it was about noon Monday in Raglan, NZ (the day after the Super Bowl was actually played in the U.S.), when I tuned in with my friends, Toni and Steve. We were grad students together at the University of Illinois during the 1990s. Toni was a native New Zealander (a Kiwi), while Steve hailed from Virginia. I assumed that he would be excited to see the game--and might even feel nostalgic about participating in the familiar ritual of watching the Super Bowl. I assumed wrong. Admittedly, it was more than a little distracting to try to watch football when the temperature outside was in the high 70s, and the view from where we sat was like the one below (this photo was taken in November, 2010, when I visited again).
As compelling as the Super Bowl might have been if I had been at home (i.e., the game featured the first two African American coaches), it was difficult to watch a game that was played under such sloppy conditions. Even though Steve was from the U.S., he said he would rather be watching cricket or rugby.Needless to say, when I came across this article by Martin and Reeves (2001), it did not come as a total shock that "the whole world (wa)sn't watching" the Super Bowl (p. 213). Keep in mind that this article was published before 9/11, so the reference to "the worst act of terrorism" (p. 213) visiting U.S. soil was about Oklahoma City--not the World Trade towers. Even before 9/11, Martin and Reeves were talking about the declining U.S. political hegemony. [note: if you are not familiar with hegemony, it is a word that basically means "dominance," and is typically used to refer to political dominance amongst nations. We will use this term in different contexts throughout the semester].
One of the most surprising things I learned from this article was how much the size of the viewing audience varies for American football, in comparison to other global sports. I would have guessed that the World Cup of soccer had more viewers but to read that an "estimated cumulative audience of 37 billion people" watched some of the 64 games that made up the tournament in 1998 was astounding to me! The U.S. estimates of just over 100 million who watched last year's Super Bowl obviously pales by comparison. If the contrast in numbers caught me by surprise, I was even more astonished to discover that the Cricket and Rugby World Cups each claimed somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-2.5 billion viewers worldwide.
Here are some questions for you to consider in relation to this article. Feel free to write comments on this blog or to address these questions in more depth in your own blogs or journals. [Note: you can still obtain points for posting comments on my blog entries].
Questions:
1. Were you surprised to read about the size of the viewing audiences for the Super Bowl in comparison to other global sporting events? Do these findings make you think differently about U.S. 'solipsism?' If so, explain.
2. How do Martin and Reeves (2001) differentiate between TV I and TV II? How do these terms relate to "Fordism" and/or "post-Fordism?"
3. In this article, the authors refer to the 60-sec ad produced in 1984 for Super Bowl XVIII, that literally "revolutionized the way advertisers would approach the game" (p. 219). What was that ad and why was it so transformative? How important are the ads to your Super Bowl viewing experience?
4. Any predictions? Who do you think will win; by what score; who will be MVP? Whose ad will win the day? What is/will be your most lasting memory?
Comments
Also, Americans believing that the rest of watch the world is watching the game is kind of ignorant because they should realize that game is either airing in the middle of night or during the workday (in your case 12:00 on a Monday).
Furthermore it should be noted that their are so many other versions of football played in other countries. For example Australian Rules Football League is the most widely attended sport in all of Australia yet most Americans, myself included don't know the first thing about Australian Rules Football. If American's do not follow Australian Rules Football then how could we expect Australians to follow American football.
I also found the use of TV I and TV II in the Martin and Reeves' "The Whole World Isn't Watching (But We Thought They Were): The Super Bowl and U.S. Solipsism" (2001) to be interesting concepts. As explained in the article, TV I is from the 50s-70s era, in which TV was dominated by three major networks and all programs were focused on gaining as large of an audience from every demographic as possible. In contrast, TV II from the 70s onward focuses on the smaller demographic niches with many more programs available from multiple venues (Martin & Reeves, 2001). There are few TV events that remain that continue to practice the methods of the TV I era, but the Super Bowl is definitely one of them. Others that I can think of include Time Square on New Years Day, float parades during holidays, and other sport's national championships.
In response to the TV I and TV II, I think it is very interesting how TV has changed. For my generation, it is what we know and have never known any different. The TV programming is also a good insight to our generation and how it is so much different from past ones. Our parents and before are so used to having limited access to the outside world and having to wait for that information to arrive. My generation is so used to the idea of here and now. If we don’t have what we are looking for within 30 seconds, we look elsewhere. By having hundreds, even thousands, of TV channels allows us instant access to virtually any domain we please. If you want to learn how to cook, you can right now; if you want to watch a sporting event tomorrow that happened today, TIVO it; if there is a new movie out that you don’t want to go rent, buy it from On Demand.
Along with the events mentioned by Tony, I feel like the presidential elections could be in the realm of TV I. Though some specific broadcasts are directed towards a specific party line (i.e. Democratic or Republican), the coverage of presidential elections as a whole is directed towards the United States people as a whole. The goal is to provide coverage of the events as they happen on the deciding of our new president every four years. One could argue that it is only directed at those interested in politics, but it concerns our entire nation, even those who are not interested in politics per se.
In response to the TV I and TV II, I think it is very interesting how TV has changed. For my generation, it is what we know and have never known any different. The TV programming is also a good insight to our generation and how it is so much different from past ones. Our parents and before are so used to having limited access to the outside world and having to wait for that information to arrive. My generation is so used to the idea of here and now. If we don’t have what we are looking for within 30 seconds, we look elsewhere. By having hundreds, even thousands, of TV channels allows us instant access to virtually any domain we please. If you want to learn how to cook, you can right now; if you want to watch a sporting event tomorrow that happened today, TIVO it; if there is a new movie out that you don’t want to go rent, buy it from On Demand.
Along with the events mentioned by Tony, I feel like the presidential elections could be in the realm of TV I. Though some specific broadcasts are directed towards a specific party line (i.e. Democratic or Republican), the coverage of presidential elections as a whole is directed towards the United States people as a whole. The goal is to provide coverage of the events as they happen on the deciding of our new president every four years. One could argue that it is only directed at those interested in politics, but it concerns our entire nation, even those who are not interested in politics per se.
Currently due to numbers the IFL plays a modified version of football (7 on 7) I believe. The difference in numbers of course would change the dynamics of the games. Also, generally less skilled players usually means a team will try of running more which might have made the game look a little more like rugby to you.
Rugby is really a minor sport in football. Soccer and Basketball are the two most popular sports. Also matkot is very popular in the beach areas.
I think after breaking the population it should be easy to see why. Rugby is "dominated by the first tier unions: Argentina, Australia, England, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales." (Wikipedia) Generally speaking, the game is popular in places with a connection to the British empire or is Western Europe. The population of Israel is as follows.
The country has a population of 7.6 million.
~2 million are Arab national citizens. Generally speaking, I believe Rugby has not been a popular sport in the Arab world.
Nearly the rest of 5.6 million population are Jews.
The largest single ethnic group of about 3 million, the Ashkenazi Jews i.e. comes from Germany and Eastern Europe wjich are non historical Rugby countries.
The other major ethnic groups the Sephardic and Mizrahi, Jews comes from Middle Eastern and North African areas where the sport is not popular.
Overall those who do play Rugby in Israel tend to be expats from areas such as Britain, South Africa, or Oceania. However, that tends to be a pretty small population. However, that is not to say the sport could not possibly become more popular one day.