Super, Super, Super Bowl

If I were getting paid to write these postings I probably would have an employer and editor who will have given me the assignment to write something about last night's Super Bowl. I'm here to tell you I'm not employed by anyone, only really watched the game up to halftime, and a little after. So, writing about the game is optional for me, but even with that incomplete viewing I feel there is still a lot to write about. 

Does anyone think like I do that there were waaaaay too many commercials? I don't have a numerical tally, but I suspect there were more commercials than plays from scrimmage. And they were shown so  many times back-to-back-to-back that at one point when the viewer was released from the commercial blitz and they came back to show you the field no one was there. Did they all go home for the evening?

I know it's commercial television, but there should be a limit. Years ago those juke boxes in diners attached to the booths had to play the tune in full, not just 30-60 seconds of it. You had to get your money's worth.

But since we don't actually pay to see the game in a financial transaction sense, I guess the network—in this case CBS— feels they can flood the viewer with commercials for which they collected millions of dollars from advertisers who felt they had to pay through the nose be there. 

I suspect there are two models brewing for televising games—with and without commercials. They've already done this with an NBC Peacock game telecast that you could watch without commercials, provided of course you had the streaming service Peacock. 

But there was no way to watch that same game with commercials on regular broadcast television. It was an offer to sign up for Peacock streaming, and of course pay for that.

So I have to believe there will be a time when you can have the option to pay to watch the game via streaming without commercials, or just suffer through all of them with broadcast TV.

It might be a hard sell since the commercials are touted to be as entertaining as the game itself, so why wouldn't you want to watch both?

But there is an advertising adage that you can't sell anything to anyone through advertising who is over 50, like myself, significantly over many hills.

Maybe the commercials themselves can be additionally packaged in a bundle that you pay to see all on their own without having to watch them unfold during the game. Might make a good historical DVD to watch after many years elapse. See Steve Jobs with a tie on.

No matter. I'm here to tell anyone who will listen that unless the Giants are in the Super Bowl that after watching 58 Super Bowls I won't be there, with our without commercials under any pay or free package.

Going to bed at a decent hour with a good book is proving more appealing. Goodbye Super Bowl. I knew you well.

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