Supplied — Jonathan SatrialePoint: Media week is pointless and we’re better off without it
In a sport that’s leaning towards giving Howie Long and Jimmy Johnson more airtime than the actual people who play the game, the game-free media week that precedes the Super Bowl is a completely pointless exercise.
Achieving little more than allowing networks to cover more of their broadcast schedule in wall-to-wall analytics and coverage, media week is the sorriest excuse for sports TV I have ever laid eyes upon. Featuring more over-the-hill retired players and coaches who can’t find jobs than you can shake a cheque at, media week pulls out story lines that have no bearing on the game.
Scrolling through NFL.com’s Super Bowl page brings up articles like “Who has more swagger, Panthers or ’89 Bears?,” “Super Bowl Fashion,” and “Football Baby’s Super Bowl 50 pick.” I am genuinely concerned for the health of anybody who actively wants to watch a three-minute clip that has as its peak of tension an infant reaching a drool-covered hand towards a Panthers helmet.
Let me back up for a moment. I once watched the NFL Pre-Super Bowl coverage, and can trace the exact incident that stopped me. In 2009’s Super Bowl XLIII, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals faced off in the big one. In the lead up to the game, there was a full hour of TV coverage on the hyperbaric chamber that Hines Ward slept in before the matchup. An hour. I don’t give a single fuck, flying or otherwise, about a past-his-prime receiver trying to rehab a muscle strain before his last attempt at a championship. I just don’t.
The small city’s worth of media that roll into whatever unfortunate city hosts the NFL Championship leave two whole weeks later, with nothing remaining but confetti. Just cut the damn week out. It’s utterly pointless, and makes us wait one more week to drown ourselves in Coors Light and dive into enormous plates of nachos. — Mitch Sorensen
Counterpoint: It’s entertaining, despite being stupid and over the top
Yeah, Super Bowl media week is stupid. It’s a distraction; it panders to the lowest common denominator, and it’s a huge waste of time. Blah, blah, blah.
It’s stupid to be sure, but I’m honestly OK with that. It allows people to humanize these larger than life personalities. I’ve heard Tom Brady talk about the opposing team’s defence a million times before, but I haven’t heard about how much he likes Jay-Z. How about that? Tom Brady likes Jay-Z, like a regular person.
We forget that these gladiators of the gridiron are just people underneath their pads, so I enjoy seeing them laugh and joke, and I also enjoy the effort reporters put into asking them a mix of serious and silly questions. Let’s not hold media week to the same standard as actual analysis, because they’re not the same at all.
Like it or not, it’s successful. So successful in fact, that this year the NFL is turning its actual media day (which used to take place during the day), into a prime-time event, now being held during the evening. Clearly people are tuning into this event, and it’s entertaining enough to warrant prime-time status.
What’s the alternative here? Scrap the event altogether? What does that accomplish? It’ll instead just be replaced with more analysis that’s severely lacking in personality in comparison. Sure, Tom Brady fielding marriage proposals carries significantly less merit than thoroughly deconstructing the Panthers’ pass rush, but I know which one I’d rather watch.
We get normal analysis all the time, but during this special time of the year, we get to see football players laughing it up before the most serious game of their lives. I for one am all in favour of this crazy, stupid event. It’s not as if we have to deal with this before every single game during the regular season — if you don’t like it, grit your teeth, and tune into another channel to get real analysis. Leave media week alone. As Marshawn Lynch once famously said: “I’m all about that action, boss.”
