Super Bowl XLI (#324, Topic G)

In the last decade or so, among professional sports in USA, the biggest game is, most likely, the Super Bowl, whose 41st encounter will be held this evening in Miami, beginning at 6:30. Ticket to today's game, according to CNBC, were offered by scalpers at $10,000 each a few days ago, but down to $2,000 each last Friday, and even to $1,700 each on the internet. The minimum wage in USA, before it was adjusted to $7.25 over a two-year period last week, was $5.35 per hour -- it would take a hamburger flipper, earning the minimum wage, almost 1900 hours -- 10+ months -- to make $10,000 before taxes; a Super Bowl game will be over in 3 or 4 hours. With 6 billion people watching over TV around the world, a 30-second ad costs more than $2 million. The economics of professional sports is staggering. The biggest game begets the biggest gaming (there is no gambling in USA, only gaming); I would not be surprised if several billion dollars were bet on the game's outcome. One columnist predicted a score of 31-28 Bears, on the ground that Chicago Bears are strong on defense. And, in tense games, defense tends to shine over offense. I have seen Super Bowl only once, VII, between the undefeated Miami and Washington Redskins, in Los Angeles -- at that time, I was on leave to a Federal government agency from my professorship at U of Washington, and was on business in Los Angeles that weekend. I managed to buy a ticket just outside the stadium -- at face value, for $20, if my memory serves me. The stadium was not full, and the game (the first time I ever watched a professional football game in person) was the dullest I had witnessed up to that time. (Miami won, 14:7.) I have since seen two other pro football games, one 2 or 3 years ago in Washington (the security check was extremely tight, spoiling whatever fun there was), and the other last Christmas eve in Detroit, between Lions and Chicago Bears. Again, if my memory serves me, during the entire second quarter of that Lions-Bears game, neither team made a first down; it was punting back and forth for the entire 15 minutes, though the game, during the second half, was quite exciting. Using this game as a gauge (at that time, Detroit's record was 2-12, one of the poorest, while Chicago's was 12-2, one of the best), I do not think this XLI encounter will be a high-scoring game, nor do I think Chicago will prevail. Of course, I have never seen Indianapolis Colts in play, so the above is merely heresy on my part. At 7:30 tonight, our retirement community has a Fireside Forum, feathering a speaker on Eleanor Roosevelt. My wife wants to go to listen to that lecture. Since I do not watch ballgames over TV anyway, we'll be at the Fireside Forum. It would be interesting to find out how many others from our community (which has a population close to 10,000) would be there. We'll see.