Super Bowl 49

Finally, finally, the Super Bowl is in our rearview mirrors. Not that it wasn’t a great game. It was. Not so great for all the Seahawks fans but great for Pats fans. All the hype leading up to it became simply too much. And that perfectly awful half-time extravaganza with Katie Perry was right in line with all the past perfectly awful half-time productions, like the bared breast of Janet Jackson or the censored lyrics of old Big Lips Mick Jagger. Light shows and hoopla are all right, just as they are for the opening ceremonies of Olympic Games, but light shows with obviously lip-sync singers who can’t be heard or understood are not all right. If they’re going to sing, sing, and if they’re going to sing, sing something understandable. Was Idina Menzel good in her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner”? You bet. Could we hear her and understand her? You Bet. Now, as for the game, that last play call at the one-yard line will be talked about for years and years to come. Who made the call? Was it Pete Carroll, was it the offensive coordinator, or was it Russell Wilson who made a switcheroo at the line? Whoever made it, it was a bad decision when they had two plays with Marshawn Lynch doing his man-beast thing to get it in the end zone. That too is now in the rearview mirror, and the Seahawks will have a year to agonize over it.

And Tom Brady will now be labeled as the greatest quarterback to ever play the game, whether he deserves it or not.

Now, what about all those SB commercials? Each 30 seconds cost $4,500,000, which works out to $150,000 per second. That’s a buncha money, and for some it was worth it, and for some it was waaaaay too much. But then, money doesn’t seem to mean as much these days as it used to, at least not in my world. For example, Clayton Kershaw signed a contract with the Big Bucks Dodgers for an average annual salary of just under $31,000,000. Let’s see, if they ask him to pitch 200 innings, he’d be making about $155,000 per inning, or about $10,000 per pitch if he averaged 15 pitches per inning. LeBron James signed a contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers for an average of $21,109,000 per year, or about $200,000 per game (counting season, pre-season, and playoff). Kevin Durant, with the Oklahoma City Thunder, averages just under $18,000,000 per year. Larry Fitzgerald, with the Arizona Cardinals, is making just over $16,000,000 a year, or about $800,000 per game (16 season, 4 pre-season). Richard Sherman, the loud-mouthed Seahawk, makes $14,000,000 a year, or about $700,000 a game. Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are both making $9,000,000 a year, or $450,000 per game, and poor Russell Wilson is low man on the totem pole, playing for $750,000 a year, or a paltry $37,500 per game. I use the term “paltry” with tongue in cheek. Nothing paltry about it. Back to the commercials. The worst of the worst was probably that bummer that Nationwide put out, about the boy who would never get to do all those great boy things because he died in an accident. Nationwide sort of made up for it with the Mindy Kaling bit about being invisible except when she asked Matt Damon if he’d kiss her. The in-betweeners were probably the two Doritos commercials, the one with the air passenger who discouraged folks from sitting in the middle seat and the one with the flying pig. The Victoria’s Secret commercial set to “I’m in the Mood for Love” probably got a lot of pubescent boys’ attentions with the boobs in the face bit, but pubescent boys wouldn’t be doing much shopping at Victoria’s Secret. But the winners were Fiat and Budweiser. Fiat should have split the expense with Viagra, for that really funny “little blue pill” that bounced away from the Italian lover to land in the gas tank of a tiny sports car that then grew into a really lusty Fiat.

Budweiser brought the cute little dog and the Clydesdales together again in their Hallmark moment, the tear-tugging reunion of the “lost dog” being saved from the wolf by the charging Bud horses.

Now that football is finally over, I have to get ready for March Madness and the Masters.