Super Bowl 50: Poised Ambivalence

After much commentary about two football champions, more seem to believe that the South Carolina Panthers had a little edge.  They were a little edgy losing 10 to 24 to the Denver Broncos.  Hard-core fans on each side celebrated appropriately. Payton Manning steady and a cohesive team performance won over those who were wavering without a preferred team even if they had learned the Dab. 

Different wavering social observations surrounded the famous Super Bowl 50 Ads:

• Defy Labels (MiniUSA) took on ‘political’ correctness while most commercials presented diverse characters prominently, like highly liked Hyundai New Date.
• One of the most liked pre-show commercials was Betty White nailing the Dab dance, contrasting the old mastering the new. Irony!
• Traditional Super Bowl advertisers performed and their creative was responsible for most buzz; newer entrants struggled with probable exception of Avocados de Mexico.   
• Serious topics, usually tabu such as domestic violence in the U. S., appeared as well as Doritos humor in baby-kicking dad while on ultrasound.  
• Lady Gaga stirring performance brought back memories of Whitney Houston historic hymn at Super Bowl XXV; setting a new standard for the future when roman numerals come back.

Audience attendance reflects another changing social trend:  while TV viewing is expected to be the second highest ever —in spite of few nail-bitting moments— streaming is expected to show huge numbers. 

2016 — Denver-Carolina (CBS) ……………  49.0

2015 — New England-Seattle (NBC) …….  49.7 

Source: Nielsen, average viewing points; final numbers expected later today.

A final contrarian observation is that at a time where audiences are so fragmented, when family members have their own viewing electronic devices, when friends are constantly viewing individual screens next to each other, over 110M people were together, approximately 1 in 3 Americans, doing the same thing for two hours.  Another 50M+ around the world joined.

A few refreshing faces in leadership positions are among these teams sport heroes.  Ron Rivera is the fifth Latino to be head coach of a winning league professional team, the Panthers.  Cam Newtown, with immense talent and room to grow professionally, is an African-American quarterback at a Super Bowl, and Van Miller from the Broncos is the 2016 MVP.  They will not talk about this, but it was a big responsibility.  Somehow, those who voluntarily or involuntarily represent a whole race or group as trailblazers, face the additional thrust and anguish of letting themselves, their team and the ‘group’ down.

Congratulations to Van Miller, Payton Manning, Cam Newtown and Ron Rivera and to all who regardless of age, race or creed are or have been firsts at something, paving the way for the next.