Feb 1, 2009

Superbowl sunday wastes enough to power U.S. homes for a year...

What does professional sports has to do with the environment & energy?
Well ask yourself, 'how much environmental damage and energy use does one superbowl use'?
Add all the food, tickets, advertising, shirts, hats, webcasts, preshows, half time and you'll find it wastes enough to power all U.S. homes for a year... or the GDP of most non-OECD nations.

And during this off economy "We're using the Super Bowl to harness the audience of the world's biggest advertising stage" ...
"in a game that no one actually cares about (Steelers-Cardinals?) and which everyone will watch anyway."

No, I loved going to the Super Bowl for the chance to write about the True Meaning of the Game, which has always been, of course, about wretched excess, Harmony and Understanding notwithstanding.

This year, the Super Bowl comes to us as the news of recession grows ever worse. I try never to use GDP numbers in a column, but any time it tumbles 3.8 percent, I make an exception.

This is where we've come to: Steve Hayden, who co-authored the famous "1984" Apple commercial 25 years ago, told USA Today, "This is the first Super Bowl of the Great Depression 2.0. (Advertising) on the Super Bowl this year is like driving around in a Duesenberg in 1929."

Or maybe like getting part of the $18 billion bonus money that went to Wall Street executives in 2008 - a number that Barack Obama, while taking time from planning his first White House Super Bowl party, called "shameful."

Or maybe being like yet another Obama Cabinet appointee who somehow failed to pay all his taxes. The latest is Tom Daschle, who had to repay $140,000 for a car and driver he didn't claim. Wouldn't you love to be able to owe $140,000 in taxes? How about just affording a new car?

Which brings us back, of course, to the big game - and one of my favorite stories, which might even be true. It goes back to Super Bowl XXXI (do your own math) when Mike Holmgren, then the Green Bay coach, got his players ready on the eve of the game by spreading 96,000 $1 bills on a table - one bill for each dollar a Super Bowl win would mean to each player.

Green Bay won. And if that isn't the meaning of the Super Bowl, well, just pass the beer and the bacon explosion, and we'll figure it out next year.