Football: not America's Game

Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings

- The Wall Street Journal

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, that day not really a holiday yet feels like it just the same. It should be a fun day, and that's all well and good. But for those of you who think that all the hoopla makes football America's game, here's a bit of medicine for you.

It's not.

There is no denying that football games in general and today's match in particular carry with them a lot more drama than a June baseball game or a November hockey square-off. Yet there's need to jump to conclusions: if there were only 16 to 19 baseball or hockey games per season per team, you would get a tremendous amount more hype for every one of those too. It's the numbers, or, rather, the lack of them, which appear to make football more appealing to the sporting masses than the other games. To borrow an idea from the economists, simple supply and demand tell us that the fewer there is of something the greater the interest.

Look at the facts: for all the talk about all the excitement in each game, there's barely ten minutes of actual play. There again, the point can be made that, as there is a lot less going on than in most games, each play means more. We see that the rare numbers are what manufactures importance rather than actual play.

Still, go ahead, have your party and eat too much and hoist a cold one. But remember that it is the high atmosphere which creates the excitement, and not the game itself.