The Super Bowl has become a bit of a phenomenon in recent years for the entertainment business in general. The sports juggernaut that is the NFL is already, as stated by Albert Brooks in 2015’s “Concussion,” a corporation that “owns a day of the week.” But an interesting phenomenon has occurred with the event in recent years.
It seems like now, half the people who watch the game not only do not care about which team wins, but also just do not care about or watch the sport in general. Instead, at least half the views the game has received in recent years have been for the trailers, as the Super Bowl has become one of the hottest spots to drop new trailers and other bits of advertisements for upcoming films, TV shows and other media products.
Super Bowl LIII aired on Sunday, Feb. 3, and one consensus seemed to be apparent: it was extremely underwhelming. The football people criticized it for the boring and uninspiring plays, the commercial people criticized the commercials for lacking in variety, and the halftime show may have been the most heavily criticized. With their viewing numbers at an all-time low, the question remains: why did it seem like everything just went wrong with this year’s Super Bowl?
When it comes to the halftime show, it actually goes as far back as Colin Kaepernick’s protests in 2017. Kaepernick was fired from the NFL for kneeling during the National Anthem as a way to respect the large amount of African Americans who had been killed due to police violence over the last year and was unable to get another contract with another NFL team. His protest led to many other athletes doing it as well. This earned him the praise of African American communities and the outrage of the federal government and the NFL.
Despite the NFL repealing its stance on having athletes who did not want to stand during the National Anthem stay in the locker room or get fined, Kaepernick has still not been allowed back on the field. As a result, this has stirred up quite a bit of controversy, as this caused many artists approached by the NFL for the halftime show this year to turn down the gig. These included Rihanna, who famously turned down the gig due to the controversy, and P!nk, who dropped out when contract negotiations ended up taking too long.
It was eventually determined that Maroon 5 would headline the event, but even more controversy emerged. First, a petition on Change.org was started that urged them to drop out of the show, which they refused. However, in the wake of the controversy, they were desperate to perform with an artist of color, but this only created a new problem, as almost everyone they reached out to said no. This included Mary J. Blige, Usher, Andre 3000, Lauryn Hill, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B.
Regardless, Maroon 5 charged ahead and managed to secure rap artists Big Boi and Travis Scott. However, almost immediately upon taking the job, the two drew heavy criticism. The Reverend Al Sharpton even came out saying, “I think he should do what a lot of other major artists have done: say ‘I’m not going to participate, you can’t fight against Jim Crow and then go sit in the back of the bus.”
Almost immediately after he announced his donation, Scott officially confirmed that he would be performing with Maroon 5 at the Super Bowl halftime show. A “source close to Scott” told Variety that Scott spoke with Kaepernick before he made his decision and that the two had reached a place of “mutual respect.” However, Kaepernick later retweeted a statement from his girlfriend that declared “there is no mutual respect” between them.
Controversy aside, it is safe to say that unlike last year, this year’s Super Bowl was a failure from the beginning. Nobody wanted to be there in wake of the Kaepernick controversy, the commercials were largely uninspired and boring, and the game itself was just a chore to watch. Everyone, both in the business and who follows the Patriots and the NFL closely, knows that the Patriots, specifically head coach Bill Belichick, are famous for using unsportsmanlike tactics to win. Whether there is a shred of truth to that statement is neither here nor there. The overall point is not about who wins or loses, but whether the game was entertaining.
At the end of the day, the Super Bowl is not just a football game; it is an event. It has become one of the most sought-after spots for trailers from big movie studios and is also just a great event to get people together. In conclusion, people should have known what they were in for when the “Avengers: Endgame” teaser was dropped within the first 20 minutes of the game, while the previous year’s game waited until around the halfway point to drop the teaser for “Avengers: Infinity War.”
Image from NFL via YouTube
