As I imagine you’ve gathered by now, I don’t shy away from watching sport.
I spend large chunks of my life glued to football, tennis, boxing, racing, cricket, darts and golf. Chunks so large, in fact, if I were to sit down and calculate the hours I have ‘wasted’ doing this, I would need to use years as the unit of measurement.
The real problem is it’s not just mainstream sports that tickle my fancy.
Give me a comfy sofa, a cup of tea and fistful of biscuits and I will happily watch just about any random sport that’s on. From hurling to rowing to footgolf. I even spent one memorable afternoon glued to the World Indoor Boules Championships and refused to leave until I found out who won. And, yes, I am actually looking forward to this summer’s frisbee world championships.
But despite my evident addiction to all things sportive, I still won’t watch American football.
As a youngster I had the questionable privilege to attend a college game in the US. If memory serves it was the Oklahoma A’s against the Dallas Cowboys, or something like that. I remember sitting there for what seemed like an eternity as huge swathes of men wearing shoulder pads ran on and off the pitch every time a canon was fired. It was three seconds of action followed by minutes of tedium, set against a backdrop of overzealous, far-too-happy-with-life, stadium announcers.
Stop. Start. Stop. God bless America. Canon. Start. Stop again. Land of the free.
The hotdogs were good, and the atmosphere was intriguing, but as a sport it left me cold.
Maybe I was unlucky and it was a particularly poor game, but I recall walking out of the stadium entirely unentertained. And subsequent attempts to force myself to watch a game have had pretty similar results. It just doesn’t do it for me.
Why do I bring this up? Well, I saw numerous videos doing the social media rounds last week saying how the Super Bowl is a bigger and better event than the World Cup final.
On what planet is it bigger?
Even if you look at the base viewing figures, that claim doesn’t stack up. Each of the last four World Cup finals attracted over a billion viewers, while Super Bowl LIX (even the numbering feels pretentious) only reached a global audience somewhere in the region of 180 million.
Is it a better event? Maybe... if you like your major sport finals dripping in commercialisation, and smothered in entertainment that has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself.
I will admit that the fact that the TV commercials shown during the match have actually become an event in themselves is quite astonishing. And only the Americans could make the half-time show as important as the two halves themselves.
But ultimately what that means is that a large chunk of your viewing audience is only tuning in to watch Bill Crystal and Meg Ryan sell mayonnaise by re-enacting the orgasm scene from When Harry met Sally, or Kendrick Lamarr do a little light rapping.
Those part-time fans are probably unaware that an American football isn’t even round. But they sure push up the viewing numbers.
Football – real football that is, not the one where you barely kick the ball – has to rely almost entirely on the on-pitch action to attract viewers. There is little glitz or glamour at a World Cup final, and the pre-game show is generally awful.
American football is much more manufactured. It almost feels like it was invented by a marketing company with a hidden love for rugby. The other big American sporting favourites, basketball and baseball, feel less plasticky and are infinitely more watchable in my opinion.
The surprising thing I’ve found is how many people I know here in Malta who stayed up to silly o’clock last Sunday night/Monday morning to watch this year’s Super Bowl. And not just those with connections to North America either, quite a few pure Maltese.
Each to their own, I suppose.
Personally, I am quite happy to leave the Super Bowl to those who like that sort of thing. I will save my viewing time for more important things… like this summer’s World Lawnmower Racing Championships.
Sheffield unites
A couple of weeks ago, a 15-year-old boy was tragically stabbed to death at a Sheffield school. His name was Harvey Willgoose and he happened to be a Sheffield United fan who often watched from the Kop end.
As you would imagine, the club and its supporters wanted to pay tribute to the young lad, and a pre-match protest was organised before their home match against Portsmouth, with thousands of fans from both clubs marching through the city against knife crime.
Then, in the 15th minute of the game, a minute’s applause was held at Bramall Lane, with the referee actually stopping play so the players – and the officials – could take part in the tribute. That’s probably not unique but it isn’t something I have seen before.
But the real moving thing for me is that exactly the same thing happened earlier in the day in the game between West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield Wednesday, with a minute’s applause that included both sets of fans, players and officials. The Wednesday supporters even sang Willgoose’s name.
Say what you want about football fans and hooligans and all that stuff, but it’s heartwarming to see moments like this that prove that, when it really matters, even the greatest of rivals can put aside their differences.
The ghosts of matches past
I’ve watched a match or two at Goodison Park over the years and there is no question that it is one of those stadiums where the atmosphere can be incredible.
There is something about older grounds like Everton’s that just makes the air feel like it is electrically charged. Maybe it’s the intimacy, maybe it’s the architecture, or maybe it’s the ghosts of the millions of fans who have watched games there over the years adding their ethereal presence to proceedings.
And that’s why I can only imagine what it felt like to be in that ground last Wednesday when it hosted its 120th and final Merseyside derby. It must have been totally nuts.
Fitting then that Goodison should bow out of its derby-hosting duties with a match packed with goals, red cards and general controversy. It’s the way the old stadium would have wanted it.
The next time Everton host Liverpool it will be at their super sexy, state-of-the-art Bramley Moore Dock Stadium. No matter how much effort the architects have put into recreating a similar atmosphere – and I know they have – it just won’t be quite the same.
The passion, energy, rivalry, singing, chanting and excitement will all be there. But those ghosts will still be hanging out 2.2 miles away...
E-mail: james.calvert@timesofmalta.com
X: @maltablade