NYC events this weekend inc.: Lunar New Year, concerts, football game.

January 31, 2014 7:56 PM

NFL holds Super Bowl in NYC; NYC unimpressed. While the stadium is technically in New Jersey, it is considered equally if not primarily a New York stadium, and the NFL turned Times Square and Broadway into Super Bowl Boulevard Engineered By GMC. Visitors can kick a football, watch television, ride a toboggan, shop, enjoy a free slice of Papa John's pizza, play XBox, take a photo with the oversized Roman numerals 'XLVIII', use relevant Twitter hashtags, and more. It is not decadent and depraved, though Vice and Gothamist would tend to disagree. The Times discusses less vehement disapproval and disappointment, while Business Insider wishes ill upon the city. Ticket sales are faltering relative to recent years, with the new mayor among those skipping out.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth (99 comments total)

Exactly, if you wanted to see sweaty men hurling themselves at each other while playing with balls there's a couple places on the lower east side for that.
posted by The Whelk at 8:12 PM on January 31, 2014 [6 favorites]

That first link, what a bunch of entitled whining. The thought that there may be more going on day to day in New York City than in Indianapolis even though it's an order of magnitude larger, oh the horror!
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:12 PM on January 31, 2014

Stolen joke from article comments, but it's like they think they're fuckin' Banksy or something.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:17 PM on January 31, 2014 [2 favorites]

Wow, they'd rather be in NYC than in New Jersey, even if the Super Bowl was in New Jersey.

Oops. Turns out NYC is bigger than the Super Bowl.

Which, of course, ensures that this will never, ever, ever, be allowed to happen again.
posted by eriko at 8:32 PM on January 31, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's as if a plague of painful rectal itch has infected the city.
posted by Pudhoho at 8:33 PM on January 31, 2014

I'm really sorry to aim for fruit this low-hanging but:

enjoy a free slice of Papa John's pizza

Seriously? How are you going to make that happen?
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 8:43 PM on January 31, 2014 [18 favorites]

Meanwhile I live in NYC and am heading for the damn hills.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:44 PM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I saw "free pizza" and was like :D and then I saw "Papa John's" and was like :|
posted by moonmilk at 8:45 PM on January 31, 2014 [7 favorites]

The only thing that really needs to be said about the Super Bowl...

Go Hawks
posted by Windopaene at 8:53 PM on January 31, 2014 [10 favorites]

Seattle right now is basically going nuts. There's a 12 flag on the space needle. Boeing painted a plane in Seahawks colors and had it trace a '12' over the state. Microsoft has a 12 on their building in Bellevue. Macklemore is naming his next album 12. There is a 12 flag in space. It is literally raining '12' right now. They are re-shooting an episode of Frasier where all the dialog is replaced with the characters chanting "12 12 12" over and over again. I am only making some of these up.
posted by hellojed at 9:06 PM on January 31, 2014 [16 favorites]

Is this where we discuss the puppy bowl
posted by triggerfinger at 9:15 PM on January 31, 2014 [9 favorites]

That Vice article almost made me want to walk the one block from my office to this godforsaken little piece of Las Vegas that apparently detached from the mothership and metastasized, just to take in the grotesque waste of money. Almost.
posted by whir at 9:39 PM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

They say the neon lights are bright
On Super Bowl Blvd (on Super Bowl Blvd)
posted by moonmilk at 9:40 PM on January 31, 2014 [4 favorites]

Here's the thing - New Yorkers have lives - why would they care? Two groups of men are going to try to move an oblate spheroid around a field - WHO CARES. One of them will succeed, one will fail - this is guaranteed - tell me, why should I care? This is the sort of "athletics" where the athletes seems to spend most of their time standing around on the field - who cares?

That said, a

.

for the poor football players who's brains will be injured by insanely hard hits in this stupid event. Why can't you learn to play soccer? I don't watch THAT but at least it's got real athletes and not steroided-up, tank shaped behemoths!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:41 PM on January 31, 2014 [4 favorites]

We will not discuss the puppy bowl. There is now a kitten bowl.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:44 PM on January 31, 2014 [8 favorites]

All youse New Yorkers would be caring your ass off if the Giants were in it. Well maybe not you but the city of New York would be berzerk if the New Jersey Giants were playing Sunday instead of watching.
posted by bukvich at 9:46 PM on January 31, 2014 [4 favorites]

Is this the thread where we do the football equivalent of pretending we don't know anything about Game of Thrones because we don't have a TV?
posted by dirigibleman at 10:03 PM on January 31, 2014 [15 favorites]

I think they'd be caring more if any East Coast team was playing, instead of two teams from way west of the Mississippi.

That being said, I helped a Transit Supervisor lead a Seahawks chant in the Westlake Bus Tunnel stop tonight, in Seattle. We think it brought a smile to a few people.

Go Hawks.
posted by spinifex23 at 10:10 PM on January 31, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm not pretending - I really both don't have a TV and know absolutely zero about the Superbowl nor any of the teams in it.

I have never been so proud of my fellow New Yorkers as to discover how many of us couldn't care less about this pointless happening.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:10 PM on January 31, 2014 [5 favorites]

Do Not Watch The Super Bowl—Olbermann
posted by ob1quixote at 10:14 PM on January 31, 2014 [3 favorites]

Why should New Yorkers care? Why should we care that New Yorkers care?
posted by Brocktoon at 10:35 PM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Do Not Watch The Super Bowl"

Pay no attention to the hooded figures in the Super Bowl. Do not approach the Super Bowl, and do not approach the hooded figures.

The Super Bowl will not harm you.
posted by JHarris at 10:38 PM on January 31, 2014 [5 favorites]

Football!
posted by homunculus at 10:44 PM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

From the other FPP:

MCMikeNamara: “Also, maybe the most important piece the AV Club has ever run:

Nobody cares that you don’t care about the Super Bowl”

posted by ob1quixote at 10:44 PM on January 31, 2014 [11 favorites]

Here's the thing - New Yorkers have lives - why would they care? Two groups of men are going to try to move an oblate spheroid around a field - WHO CARES. One of them will succeed, one will fail - this is guaranteed - tell me, why should I care?

Here's the thing: You can reduce anything to its absurd component parts and then bitch "who cares?" Who cares? People who find watching football entertaining.

I don't give a shit about who does and does not like football -- I'm enjoy watching now and again, but I don't really follow it much -- but don't pull this reductionist shit. If you really are curious why people might care about football, watch a few games and try to understand what's going on. It's not poisonous. And it's moderately interesting. Especially compared to a lot of the other garbage that passes for television programming these days... "Downton Abbey?" Just a bunch of rich stuffy Brits mincing around some castle acting miserable. WHO CARES?
posted by chasing at 10:53 PM on January 31, 2014 [12 favorites]

I'm not pretending - I really both don't have a TV and know absolutely zero about the Superbowl nor any of the teams in it.

Metafilter: I really both don't have a TV and know absolutely zero about the Superbowl nor any of the teams in it.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:02 PM on January 31, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm really torn between laughing at those who obsess about it, and those that obsess about not caring about it. Really, it's a hyper event that some care about and others make a point of hating. I don't really watch it because I find it sort of boring, but a lot if people love it, so more power to them. The game of over parsing something to make it sound silly can be applied to anything anyone has every liked or loved ever.

Yeah, I wish safety was stressed more irt the average player, and yeah the NFL franchise owners are undeniablly a monopolistic group of thugs, but at this point players are well aware of the risks, and 'we the people' have become complicit in the dealings of owners and our leaders so that problem is systemic.

Really, NY doesn't care soley because NY isn't playing.
posted by edgeways at 11:04 PM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here's the thing: You can reduce anything to its absurd component parts and then bitch "who cares?" Who cares? People who find watching football entertaining.

Yes, but that's being a bit disingenuous, isn't it?

It isn't that we look at all the Super Bowl watchers, raise our shaking fists to the heaven, and exclaim Ye fools. It's that once a year this thing, football, becomes INESCAPABLE. It's not that we think you shouldn't watch it -- because really, there are many worse things, and it's good to be enthusiastic about whatever you like -- it's that we're tired of the default stance presented by the media for adult males being of course you're watching it it's the Super Bowl. That much is promotion more than anything else.
posted by JHarris at 11:04 PM on January 31, 2014 [8 favorites]

That first link, what a bunch of entitled whining. The thought that there may be more going on day to day in New York City than in Indianapolis even though it's an order of magnitude larger, oh the horror!

Just to be clear though, the author isn't the one doing the whining, he's ascribing this attitude to the NFL-industrial-complex, right?
posted by en forme de poire at 11:11 PM on January 31, 2014

One reason people like the super bowl is it's an excuse for a party. Better, it is the one excuse for a party that occurs annually that all the guests are going to show up on time, 10 minutes prior to 5 minutes after kickoff. One recipe for a good party is everybody shows up at the same time and starts drinking and enters that golden phase of first intoxication at near the same time. A party with untimed and disjointed drunkenness is usually not as good as a party with near perfect coincident drunkenness. Then if they are halfway responsible they can sober up for ninety minutes before they get back into their cars while the second half winds down.

That is my theory of one big reason underlying the success of the Super Bowl.
posted by bukvich at 11:20 PM on January 31, 2014 [6 favorites]

Two groups of men are going to try to move an oblate spheroid around a field - WHO CARES.

I mean obvsly if I am going to watch large sweaty muscular men charging at one another with murder in their eyes while a stadium full of crazed fans scream for blood, I am going to watch all 4 seasons of Spartacus.
posted by elizardbits at 11:37 PM on January 31, 2014 [4 favorites]

Lupus_yonderboy, why did you even feel the need to comment in this thread? Other than thread-shitting, I mean.
posted by misha at 11:47 PM on January 31, 2014 [7 favorites]

Yes, but that's being a bit disingenuous, isn't it?

I understand your point. (Although I'd argue it's not completely unique in the way it's inescapably over-marketed -- that almost seems de rigueur.)

My complaint had more to do with people being condescending about football. As if complete ignorance of the sport somehow makes you a better person than the rest of us simple rubes who know there's just a bit more going on than two cliques of mesomorphs pounding the shit out of one another, all in the name of moving an oddly-shaped ball from one end of the field to the other.

Enjoy it or don't. But don't act like you don't understand how sports work.
posted by chasing at 11:56 PM on January 31, 2014

That is my theory of one big reason underlying the success of the Super Bowl.

And don't forget the gambling. I couldn't care less about football, but I do like the occasional drink and the occasional wager. Plus, a chance to get together with friends...what's not to like?
posted by Literaryhero at 11:57 PM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]

But don't act like you don't understand how sports work.

I have watched the sports. I grew up in a household where 50% of the occupants were crazy about the sports. My sister sportsed her way through high school and most of college, and I have attended many sports-oriented parties where I watched athletes sportsing as hard as they could sport. I nevertheless fail to understand why anyone cares about this stuff. I don't understand why colleges allow their primary mission, education, to be perverted by something as silly as ball games. I don't understand why people associate themselves with for-profit corporations which own a team of people who, by and large, aren't from the city they're named after. I don't understand why people who live in said cities believe that anything that happens on the field of play has anything to do with them or their respective cities, despite the near-total willingness of the corporations that own them to abandon their supposed home towns when it suits them. I have learned the rules, watched the games, and I don't have a clue why anyone, anywhere, cares about any of it.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:20 AM on February 1, 2014 [16 favorites]

So is everyone in here riding Fixies and drinking craft beer while they comment too? Sheesh.
posted by dry white toast at 12:21 AM on February 1, 2014 [5 favorites]

There's this little gem, from the second link:

"Every city can't host a Super Bowl just because of the sheer enormity of this event."

--NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell
posted by alexei at 12:41 AM on February 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

I understand your point. (Although I'd argue it's not completely unique in the way it's inescapably over-marketed -- that almost seems de rigueur.)

Well, many people aspire to propel things to that level of cultural ubiquity but few succeed at taking it nearly as far.

Of course, when you look at it closely, the kind of mania extreme sports fans exhibit looks rather familiar, because it's just nerdery, unabashed, joyful nerdery, just in a guise that lets its practitioners claim is better and so excuse it to themselves. Which is fine of course, like I'd have any standing to judge. It's just this particular kind of nerdery seems to be exalted, is considered to be a bit more understandable by laypeople than D&D players, LARPers, Trekkers, or MLP fans.
posted by JHarris at 12:41 AM on February 1, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm not sure if this is technically a derail, but Breaking Madden. I had tears in my eyes.
posted by naju at 12:51 AM on February 1, 2014 [6 favorites]

Santa is fiction!
posted by panaceanot at 12:52 AM on February 1, 2014

Super Blue
posted by telstar at 1:55 AM on February 1, 2014

All Super Bowl logos: 1966 to present
posted by honestcoyote at 2:40 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

I see lupus_yonderboy's getting roundly set upon for his characterisation of football, but l_y got away with this travesty of geometry:

oblate spheroid

A football is far too oblate to be called spheroid. Much better to refer to it as the rotational projection of a parabolic sector.
posted by ambrosen at 2:41 AM on February 1, 2014 [14 favorites]

You'd think the World's capital would be interested to know who will become the World Champions
posted by fullerine at 3:05 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here's the thing - New Yorkers have lives - why would they care?

Yes, that's it; New Yorkers have lives and all the rest of us mouth breathers in the other states are just too stupid to know not to care about football. How can your city stand being so much better than the rest of us? It must be a terrible burden.
posted by octothorpe at 4:31 AM on February 1, 2014 [13 favorites]

Much better to refer to it as the rotational projection of a parabolic sector.
Is that actually what it is? Does anybody know precisely how the shape is described?
posted by Wolfdog at 4:37 AM on February 1, 2014

- SIR! IT'S THE PRESIDENT ON THE LINE
- I'M BUSY WHAT IS IT THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD (FLEXES MUSCLES)
- IT'S A VERY IMPORTANT MISSION. TO PREVENT NUCLEAR WAR
- I'M LISTENING BUT THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD (STILL FLEXES MUSCLES)
- THE PRESIDENT SAYS...
- ...YES? (FLEXES MUSCLES IMPATIENTLY)
- ...THAT YOU NEED TO TELL THE WORLD HOW MUCH YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT THE SUPER BOWL
- W-W-W-W-WHAT? (DEFLATING BALLOON SOUND, STOPS FLEXING MUSCLES, CRIES)
- SIR, WE WOULDN'T HAVE ASKED IF IT WASN'T NECESSARY
- NO, I UNDERSTAND. I UNDERSTAND ALL TOO WELL. I WILL SEE IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO EVER BE SO BRAVE AS TO VOCALLY NOT CARE ABOUT THE SUPER BOWL. THE ANSWER IS PROBABLY NOT
- THE PRESIDENT AGREES. THAT'S WHY WE'RE ALL KILLING OURSELVES
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:47 AM on February 1, 2014 [7 favorites]

Well in my Brooklyn neighborhood Super Bowl is a pretty big deal every year. The local grocery is always sold out of chips and you could hear a pin drop while it's on. I can tell it's over when the groups of people appear back on the street. I even heard someone say his nephew was going out to Meadowlands.

This probably sounds like snark but it's not.
posted by maggiemaggie at 4:48 AM on February 1, 2014

The Super Bowl is an excellent chance to see a good Broadway show.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:03 AM on February 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

The skiing and or the shopping is pretty great also (as in not crowded).
posted by sammyo at 5:12 AM on February 1, 2014

It's that once a year this thing, football, becomes INESCAPABLE.

Really? I've found it eminently escapable, even in a pretty football-mad town like Buffamalo, and lord knows our TV is on a lot. I've never been given any guff by an adult male for saying "That's this weekend? Sorry, football isn't my thing, I mostly only watch F1 and am getting into hockey."

I mean obvsly if I am going to watch large sweaty muscular men charging at one another with murder in their eyes while a stadium full of crazed fans scream for blood, I am going to watch

HOCKEY!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:41 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Football? Meh.

Now if they were playing Hussade - that's a game!
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:41 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's actually a REALLY good time to go to the mall, if you've been avoiding it. The place is empty.
posted by R. Mutt at 5:46 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have no idea how anyone could think of a football as being oblate. It's prolate.
posted by kiltedtaco at 5:56 AM on February 1, 2014

How can your city stand being so much better than the rest of us? It must be a terrible burden.

It really is. The sacrifices are immense - I myself run a Vitamin D deficiency, for example - but we press on, thanklessly, trying to pull America ever so slightly in the direction of Civilization.

A football is football-shaped.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 6:00 AM on February 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

enjoy a free slice of Papa John's pizza

Seriously? How are you going to make that happen?

By having no standards or baseline for pizza.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 6:02 AM on February 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

Yeah, never had any problems avoiding football. I've never watched or been to a game. There are fans at work who trade jibes at the ends of meetings, good naturedly: I chuckle and move on.

Anything that makes people a little nicer to each other is good.
posted by sonic meat machine at 6:03 AM on February 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's actually a REALLY good time to go to the mall, if you've been avoiding it. The place is empty.
posted by R. Mutt at 8:46 AM on February 1

That's because it probably opens at 10:00 on Saturdays.
posted by TedW at 6:08 AM on February 1, 2014

Essex County local here. Two days ago we got a phone call from the county executive telling us not to be alarmed by the many military helicopters that would be flying about on Friday. They're just practicing for their part in the game. Or the pregame. Or something. Anyway, we should be proud to be part of it.
posted by BWA at 6:28 AM on February 1, 2014

Someone I know mentioned "this feels like the top for football" and I can't agree more. The gigantic funfair slide in Times Square really does feel like the top tick, the final burst of exuberance that pricks the bubble.

As for New Yorkers not caring about Super Bowl, it does seem oddly true, at least in my office near said funfair slide. This is the first place I've worked where everyone is a football geek, and for the past months (it seems like forever) people have been constantly going off about "RG3" or "Marshawn Lynch" or propositioning each other to trade players in their fantasy football teams. Breaking news about torn ACL's is breathlessly reported as people panic and crowd around someone's computer for the details. Yet going into the Super Bowl, there's oddly been almost no football talk in the office. The stuff in Times Square is just an annoyance that draws masses of tourists that clog up the sidewalk.
posted by pravit at 6:29 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

24-20 Seahawks in overtime. You read it here first.
posted by Renoroc at 6:49 AM on February 1, 2014

I did not care about football until I started playing Pro Strategy Football 2013 on my phone. Now I am looking into Front Office Football 7. I would never want to be a player, but being a coach seems pretty interesting. I'm never going to contribute money or significant a attention because of all the problems both health and corporate mentioned by others, but the concept of the game itself I find interesting. I also drink craft beer. I do not have a fixie but instead a mountain bike (it was cheap).
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 6:51 AM on February 1, 2014

Much better to refer to it as the rotational projection of a parabolic sector.
Is that actually what it is? Does anybody know precisely how the shape is described?

Actually, the football is an S²-orbifold which is the quotient of S² by the group Z/3Z generated by a rotation of 2\pi/3 which fixes the North and South poles... it's a purely abstract singular manifold.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:52 AM on February 1, 2014 [8 favorites]

I put people complaining about football's inescapability in the same category as people complaining about the oppression of Christians in pop culture: this particular thing isn't for you. That's not a defect in you or everyone else. Move on.
posted by Etrigan at 7:06 AM on February 1, 2014

I live in Manhattan and love football (Packers fan since the mid 1980s). What's been great about having the Super Bowl here, from my perspective, is that it really hasn't affected my day-to-day life one bit. As far as I can tell it's been largely confined to the Times Square area, and no one who lives here goes to Times Square anymore since they replaced all the porn shops, shitty bars and prostitutes with Disney stores. It may that the size and geographies of NYC make it the only American city that could host an event the size of the Super Bowl without having it completely dominate city life for at least a week. I'd be interested to hear from other people who have lived in a SB-hosting city. The only difference I have seen is that suddenly I know an awful lot of people who are going to the game. But if NYers don't seem to care all that much about the game, it probably has much to do with the fact that both teams playing this year come from far away to the West and we don't have much reason to care about them. I can guarantee that if it were a Patriots-Eagles game, plenty of people around here would be paying more attention.
posted by slkinsey at 7:17 AM on February 1, 2014

what's not to like?

Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury.
posted by mikelieman at 7:20 AM on February 1, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think the issue is mostly, as others have alluded to, Times Square. New Yorkers are have been trained to write-off Times Square as a sort of 'negative zone' to be avoided at all costs. By putting the SB pavilion there, they pretty much guaranteed that most New Yorkers would mentally file the Super Bowl as something to keep at arms-length.
posted by rosswald at 7:33 AM on February 1, 2014 [6 favorites]

and no one who lives here goes to Times Square anymore since they replaced all the porn shops, shitty bars and transsexual prostitutes with Disney stores.

Times Square used to have laser tag too, that was a very valid reason for a local to go, esp. as on Sunday it was unlimited laser tag and arcade games for $25. (11 yr. olds from the projects will kick your ass at laser tag.) That closed down too a few years back and now there's probably a Chili's there or something.

So is everyone in here riding Fixies and drinking craft beer while they comment too? Sheesh.

LOL, I haven't heard anyone on about fixies in years though I still see them around, and craft beer is now pretty mainstream not only in NYC but even its suburbs, and I hear it's at least present even in America.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 7:39 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

I do want to get out and see all the festivities but I haven't had the energy and now I fear it's too late. We'll see. Today is long.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:25 AM on February 1, 2014

Oh man so I was walking home last night and I saw all this flashing light on a dark and nearly empty street and it was this NBC studio/dj booth cube with speakers and a fixed camera which I assume was something for a news agency to cut to show what a wiiiiiild Super Bowl madness party we're having and definitely not a mobile studio cube attached to a truck sitting on a nearly deserted street across from a bank miles and miles from the actual event.
posted by The Whelk at 8:26 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

( plus, there's a four hour little-performed Handel oratorio playing on Sunday! Conflict of interest!)
posted by The Whelk at 8:40 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Which oratorio so I can feel envy.
posted by winna at 8:50 AM on February 1, 2014

I don't care about football either way, but I gotta give kudos to whoever organized this, for putting the game itself in a stadium that's in the middle of nowhere, and for putting these corporate "festivities" in Times Square. Both are places that are incredibly easy to avoid, so I don't understand why anybody who doesn't live or work there pretends to be inconvenienced, or even annoyed. Not to mention that by Monday, it's all over and there won't be a trace of it ever having happened at all.
posted by monospace at 8:51 AM on February 1, 2014

Winna, Theodora
posted by The Whelk at 8:56 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ticket sales are faltering relative to recent years

Insanely expensive tickets for game held outdoors, mid-Winter and in New Jersey not selling well? Huh.
posted by MikeMc at 9:18 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

I mean, New York likes football. They have two teams. The Super Bowl is going to be the highest rated TV show this year and most of the rest of the top ten will also be football. But yeah, it's a mega big city that can do this sort of hosting like nobody else in the country can. I'm glad the weather is looking to be mild because I would like it to be in New York (or other colder cities like Philly) more in the future.

It's just this particular kind of nerdery seems to be exalted, is considered to be a bit more understandable by laypeople than D&D players, LARPers, Trekkers, or MLP fans.

Yeah, it's weird as someone who likes to watch Star Trek and MLP. Any time I mention that there are all sorts of assumptions that I am some mega obsessed fan that does cosplay, goes to conventions, is obsessed with every little detail about the program, spends a ridiculous amount of money on it, and basically centers my life around the fandom.

The only thing I'm actually like that for is Philadelphia Eagles football. I wear an expensive jersey of my favorite player. At a steep cost I travel to attend games and party with thousands of other fans, even if it's snowing and freezing out. I watch every game (sometimes twice) and read ridiculous amounts of coverage about the team and listen to sports radio, year round. I have team posters on my walls, bobble-head figurines, team beer glasses, and more. In fact, at times, I might even appreciate when some representatives of the team are sexualized.

You are now on your way to the Eagles Cheerleaders section of our site.

Please note, this area contains mature content. Click the continue button to proceed or click the cancel button to return to the PhiladelphiaEagles.com homepage.

So, I'm probably a bigger fan than most people. But since everybody (it seems like) around here is a fan I kind of blend in and have never faced a raised eyebrow for being this involved or faced a negative judgement for it. (Though there are some negative stereotypes about the fans of the Eagles, that reputation was mostly earned in some ways and is starting to fade as fan behavior has improved.)

So basically everything else I'm a fan of my involvement stretches as far as reading or watching the content and maybe talking about it online, but that's the stuff you can get judged an obsessed loser or a nerd for liking. So, I can totally understand how people can get frustrated at the cultural hypocrisy there. Nothing in life is so interesting that everybody should be assumed to be into it. It takes a lot of mental investment in a hobby before you can really appreciate it as a big thing.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:53 AM on February 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

> I don't give a shit about who does and does not like football -- I'm enjoy watching now and again, but I don't really follow it much -- but don't pull this reductionist shit.

First, cut out the swearing, OK? It doesn't make your argument any better.

Second, the idea that pointing out parts of something that are badly wrong is "reductionist shit" is ridiculous. "Cigarettes cause cancer." "That's reductionist shit!"

We now know that a lot of these players are permanently injuring their brains - that they are condemning themselves to a miserable, early death this way (and of course there's the persistent steroid use) - but management is unwilling to make the slightest change to the game to try to help them. This is simply bad, and I'm very glad so many of my fellow citizens won't be a party to that travesty, whatever their reason is.

I'm not particularly interested in baseball - but I don't knock the World Series (except for the stupid name - the USA and Canada do NOT make up the world) - because baseball players aren't being killed by their game. Same with most other sports - with of course the notable exception of boxing, which again has the "persistent damage to brains" issue.

> How can your city stand being so much better than the rest of us? It must be a terrible burden.

It is, but we console ourselves with the amazing transportation system, fantastic nightlife, those brilliant museums, and vast quantities of exciting, cultured people.

Really, if your city defines itself by professional sports, aka bread and circuses, then New York City is better than your city. Deal with it!

I know a ton of people who like sports - because they go out and do it themselves. That's a super-great idea. As I said before, watching a bunch of millionaire behemoths destroy their brains is not my idea of a good time.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:58 AM on February 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

Wow. Nice hate. I'm a country boy, and I like it fine.
posted by Trochanter at 10:09 AM on February 1, 2014

We now know that a lot of these players are permanently injuring their brains - that they are condemning themselves to a miserable, early death this way (and of course there's the persistent steroid use) - but management is unwilling to make the slightest change to the game to try to help them.

There have been significant changes to the game and there will continue to be changes to the game. There are valid criticisms surrounding this, they hid the dangers in the past and it is absolutely true the problem is not yet solved. It is okay if you want to discuss this important issue, but it would be better if you could do it with a bit deeper knowledge of the issues.

Same with most other sports - with of course the notable exception of boxing, which again has the "persistent damage to brains" issue.

The problem seems like it might be a lot more prevalent than we think, there has been some troubling stuff in soccer for example:

Two summers ago, as my collegiate soccer career was beginning at Northwestern University, I had the privilege of playing against two of the best goalkeepers in the country, Molly Poletto and Emily Oliver. By any reckoning, we were three of the most fearless and hardworking goalkeepers around, and we all had spent time playing for the U.S. Youth National Team. Yet, all three of us have been knocked out of the game by multiple concussions suffered while playing college soccer.

Hockey has issues too because of the intense speed and physicality. Basically any sport where you regularly get hit in the head is bad long term, even if the hits aren't always concussions.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:10 AM on February 1, 2014

It's really funny to see lupus go off. I've lived in NYC and Seattle, and I'll tell you here in Emerald City we have far more detached coolness, graduate degrees, and disdain for rednecks per capita than the trendiest neighborhoods in New York. Yet the whole city here is going ape shit for a team that, for the most part, plays incredibly entertaining football, is largely free of the egotistical Hollywood stars (yes, even Sherman) that turned me off from pro and college football in the 90s, and, most importantly, actively courts and appreciates a fan base that, by all accounts, has been a factor in many of their wins. The Super Bowl is a big, dumb, American spectacle, like Vegas, or Christmas, with a rotting core which solidifies existing social inequities. Fucking duh. But, like Vegas or Christmas, if you tell people you're just not impressed with it and there's no possible way to appreciate what is entertaining about it, then you are lying and maintaining an affectation.

I totally agree with the criticism of organized sports with regard to traumatic brain injury, which by the way, occurs more frequently in soccer in the US. There's no way my kids will play football. This is a completely separate issue that has to do with the way the game is played and the NFL and NCAA are going to need to change what kind of hits are considered legal. Football's not going away over this issue. /total derail.

I'm not sure what people expected from holding the Super Bowl in Jersey. I'm sure just as much money will be spent and just as much as many people will watch as any other year. For my part, this is a good match up tomorrow, The Hawks are an entirely likable underdog team. This season has given the good people of my adopted home town an instant conversation starter, but if you don't want to care about football, it's easily avoidable, even here in Seattle. I'm going to try making chicken wings in the slow cooker, have a few friends over, watch the game with my sons in our blue and green jerseys, probably mute the commercials, and I expect to thoroughly enjoy myself.
posted by Random Person at 11:48 AM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Many of us moved to NYC with the hope of getting away from just the type of inane bullshit and boosterism that the Super Bowl represents. That it's now being hosted here is just another sign of how corporate capitalism now owns everything in America.

Hope you like junk food, chain stores, inequality and curtailed civil liberties 'cause that's what you're going to get.

Go team, rah!
posted by nowhere man at 12:01 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Also, these guys are way cooler than lupus_yonderboy and seem to like this whole thing just fine.
posted by Random Person at 12:01 PM on February 1, 2014 [2 favorites]

Many of us moved to NYC with the hope of getting away from just the type of inane bullshit and boosterism that the Super Bowl represents.

You moved to a place that has two NFL teams, two MLB teams, two NBA teams and two NHL teams to get away from sports? Good plan.
posted by Etrigan at 12:13 PM on February 1, 2014 [13 favorites]

junk food, chain stores, inequality and curtailed civil liberties ? New York's pretty much the home of all of that. How are you getting away from it? You're going to the heart of it!
posted by CrystalDave at 12:20 PM on February 1, 2014

Many of us moved to NYC with the hope of getting away from just the type of inane bullshit and boosterism that the Super Bowl represents. That it's now being hosted here is just another sign of how corporate capitalism now owns everything in America.

The New York Stock Exchange was founded in 1817. I think that the roots of corporate capitalism in the city go back a little farther than tomorrow's Super Bowl.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:57 PM on February 1, 2014 [6 favorites]

Dear NFL,

Three things you need to know:

1) New Yorkers do not take kindly to Big Events that Mess Up Their Shit. Remember when Bloomie was getting all hot and bothered about the 2012 Olympics and the city was all like "ehh...maybe if you build us a couple new subway lines, we'll put up with it. Maybe." We tolerate such things, but generally regard them as mild irritants, at best.

2) There are a lot of New Yorkers who care about football, and also a lot who don't. This is not because we are effete snobs who look down on the rest of the country. It's because there's a hell of a lot of us and, statistically, that means some number of us will not care about football. And, yeah, it is culturally acceptable to not care about football here in a way that it isn't in some parts of the US.

3) This is a baseball town.

Sincerely,

The People of the City of New York
posted by breakin' the law at 12:59 PM on February 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

Hope you like junk food, chain stores, inequality and curtailed civil liberties 'cause that's what you're going to get.

Moving to New York to get way from inequality and capitalism is....perplexing.
posted by breakin' the law at 1:11 PM on February 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

Soooo, it seems my spousal unit and I have some sort of Super Bowl curse. Once again, we accidentally ended up in a city revolving around the Super Bowl. We planned our Honeymoon months ago and the first stop is NY before we leave the country. We really don't follow football at all(no hate to those of you that do, it simply isn't our bag) and didn't even realize at the time where the Super Bowl was being held. We will be flying to New York tomorrow at around 2pm central time. We only realized a few days ago that we would be flying in during the Super Bowl. Should be interesting.

I will report back how that goes (though it may be a few weeks)

( I am a wee bit sad not to get to see it. I usually watch it so I can at least be in on the conversation the next day)
posted by Twain Device at 4:01 PM on February 1, 2014

One thing that struck me when I lived in the US was how the same people who claimed that soccer was boring or too slow, would happily sit through 4 hours of the Super Bowl, were maybe 10% of the time something was actually happening. And don't even get me started on baseball.
posted by signal at 4:41 PM on February 1, 2014 [4 favorites]

Ah, please consider me skewered People of the Internet. Have fun whatevs you do with your Sunday.
posted by nowhere man at 4:45 PM on February 1, 2014

Football has times of action and times of between-action. When it's one, it's one, and when it's the other, the clock is stopped and there absolutely nothing happening because it's not that part of the game.

This is a contrast to a long game where it's a constant state of very-little-happening.

No judgements about which one people prefer, I think anything can be interesting if you follow it, or so the Golf fans tell me.
posted by ftm at 5:48 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

That's because they don't actually like their fans, so they deliberately chose a place where there are less of them.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:58 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

There are a lot of New Yorkers who care about football, and also a lot who don't. This is not because we are effete snobs who look down on the rest of the country.

Yeah, after this thread, I am going to need to see some kind of citation to back that claim up.
posted by misha at 8:02 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

The thing that put me off football forever was trying to watch 60 Minutes back in the days when it was a good show. During football season, the show was always delayed. I'd tune in, and they'd say that 60 Minutes would be on immediately after the football game, which had 5 minutes left to play. So I'd go do something else for 5 minutes, then come back. Now there would be 3-1/2 minutes left. Go away for 10 minutes and come back - now there were somehow 12 minutes left to play. It was like they were taunting me.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:05 PM on February 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

The S*p*r B*wl is more like CES and other mega-conventions than a sporting event; New York is not really a city geared around hosting conventions. It's got other stuff to do. (It is also the most parochial city in the US, although that's usually hidden because it's a pretty big parish.)
posted by holgate at 8:12 PM on February 1, 2014

Also 'cause a lot of US culture is basically a shitty media export out of NYC. Between NYC finance and NYC media I think it's media what harms America more.

I tried to live in America once but the anomie was overwhelming, tending to induce a soul-killing depression. While there, though, I remarked that it was very strange to me to be living in a place that had local pride. "What are you talking about, you're from New York, all I hear about from all over is how great it is," replied my interlocutor. I explained to him the difference between pride, which you might find in Texas, Boston, or Alabama, and a sense of superiority.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 9:33 PM on February 1, 2014

The Sportsman's Code Of Chivalry
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:46 PM on February 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

This Adam Cadre link pretty much perfectly sums up my feelings about soccer.
posted by en forme de poire at 4:32 PM on February 2, 2014

I'm a little stunned at how callously Fox fully weaponized the pregame…
posted by ob1quixote at 4:43 PM on February 2, 2014