Ads, food and gambling galore − 5 essential reads for the Super Bowl
I didn’t get a pass to media day, so I didn’t get a chance to ask Chiefs head coach Andy Reid about how he tends to his mustache.
- I didn’t get a pass to media day, so I didn’t get a chance to ask Chiefs head coach Andy Reid about how he tends to his mustache.
- But my colleagues and I were able to ask an all-pro lineup of scholars to write about a range of football-related topics, from the partisan food divide to the numbers behind the biggest gambling bonanza in league history.
1. Flag, you’re it
- A year ago, league officials decided to shake up the annual showcase.
- It would no longer be a tackle football game.
- But Woods points to a gender divide and a political divide that could end up clouding the sport’s future.
2. X’s, O’s and Z’s
- In 2011, former NFL cornerback Sam Shields was a rookie playing for a Green Bay Packers team that had made the Super Bowl.
- The night before the big game, he tossed and turned.
- Something tells me I’d be a lot like Shields.
3. Going all in on gambling
- Or maybe you’re betting on Reba McEntire’s national anthem to last longer than 90.5 seconds.
- The country’s gambling mania has been aided, in part, by the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling that overturned a federal ban on sports betting.
- The NFL has gone all in on its embrace of gambling, forging billion-dollar partnerships with the country’s top sportsbooks.
- Read more:
The Super Bowl gets the Vegas treatment, with 1 in 4 American adults expected to gamble on the big game
4. At least they aren’t serving donkey meat
- And even the Super Bowl – one of the few communal events left in a polarized, atomized nation – can’t avoid the creep of partisanship.
- Maybe you could just serve salmon – a food that, according to Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz’s research, is “resistant to partisan cues.” Grim times, indeed.
- Read more:
Super Bowl party foods can deliver political bite – choose wisely
5. ByeDaddy
- That’s one reason companies are willing to fork over so much cash for a coveted slot – as much as US$7 million for a 30-second spot.
- Ferrell point out, many regulars on the airwaves of the Super Bowl, such as GoDaddy and Ford, are missing from this year’s lineup.
- Read more:
Super Bowl ads: It's getting harder for commercials to score with consumersThis story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.