Prior to Super Bowl LVII tonight, we look back as last years showpiece and it’s impact on the nation.
American Football has become America’s de facto national sport and the championship game of the NFL is perhaps rife with sub textual messaging regarding Americanism. Considering how vast the audience each year’s event is, and the variety in programming, there is plenty here to discuss. Super Bowl LVI (56), the championship game of the National Football League’s 2021 season, was played on February 13, 2022, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals.
An estimated 112 million people watched the Super Bowl in the United States, and another 100 million internationally, making it one of the most watched TV programs in history. The Super Bowl is traditionally the most viewed TV broadcast in the United States each year and often breaks all-time ratings records for viewership.
In the game’s 56th edition, the Rams beat the Bengals 23-20 to conquer their second Super Bowl victory, and their first as team in Los Angeles. The game was coincidentally played in their home stadium, a brand new, state-of-the-art football stadium in the heart of Southern California, where the central theme was a celebration of the NFL’s return to Los Angeles. SoFi Stadium, named for banking company Social Financial, opened in 2020 as home of the Rams and the Chargers (relocating from San Diego).
Rams owner Stan Kroenkie spent a total of $5 billion to privately finance a majority of its construction, with an agreement that city of Inglewood would provide up to $20 million in annual tax breaks. SoFi became involved for the same reason many corporations pursue naming rights on stadiums, recognition from millions of potential consumers. SoFi paid a total of $625 million to be the brand associated with not only the Super Bowl in 2022, but the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 2028.
The theory of cultural imperialism states that media and media companies act as messaging surrogates for the state superstructure. This theory was initially proposed in 1976 by researcher Herbert Schiller, who said that large corporations from developed nations export not only a product, but also cultural norms to less developed parts of the world. As that concept relates to media from the United States, that means promoting American culture both domestically and abroad through sub textual messaging.
In the fifty-plus years of the Super Bowl’s existence, the game has transformed from a Sunday daytime sporting event to a mega cultural event. In fact, “Super Bowl Sunday” has become known as a de facto national holiday. Viewing parties and celebrations are quite commonplace, even in parts of the country without team representation.
With viewership representing approximately one-third of the total U.S. population, it’s fair to say that the audience in general is comprised of mostly non-football fans. With a large general audience, television networks have come to augment their broadcasts to cater to the wide variety of people watching the game.
With this amount of exposure, marketing companies are tested to be creative, funny, and memorable while making their pitch. A commercial for Coinbase featured a scannable QR code to their website. So many people scanned the code at once that it crashed the Coinbase site.
To kick-off this year’s game, a number of large American flags were unveiled on the field by a handful of military personnel. Singer Mickey Guyton then performed the Star-Spangled Banner. While nearly all sporting events in the United States are introduced by a rendition of the national anthem, especially at the professional level, most are not also broadcast on television.
Here, Guyton’s vocals underscored various shots of players, fans, and soldiers standing in a quiet deference. As the song concluded, several fighter jets flew overhead, and the crowd erupted in celebration.
Celebrity Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson then entered the field to deliver a pre-game speech. Speaking both to the in-stadium crowd and the camera, The Rock hit the key notes of how football’s ethos of grit and toughness align with the nation’s perception American ideals. He also noted how this moment was special to the city of Los Angeles, who not only hosted the game, but had a team playing in the game as well.
The speech led directly into the start of the game. A mere few seconds after the speech’s conclusion, Cincinnati kicker Evan McPherson delivered the game’s opening kick-off.
The Super Bowl Halftime Show, sponsored by Pepsi, is in some ways more notorious than the game itself. While the appeal of the result is often limited to sports fans, either casual or devoted, the halftime show generates interest among viewers from all demographics. Traditionally, the Halftime Show features performances from multiple artists from across genres, with a promoted headliner and surprise special guests.
Much attention was given to how the artists were rappers and R&B singers with popularity among younger viewers and African Americans. The league has longstanding history of racism, with a lack of diversity in owners, head coaches, and quarterbacks. The appointment of Jay-Z to head the league’s Super Bowl Halftime committee was an attempt by the league to have more diversity in leadership positions. This performance was also notable for signalling an acceptance of racially progressive stances.
Eminem capped his performance by taking a knee, a gesture made infamous by former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose controversial stance on police brutality and the national anthem in 2016 led to a de facto banishment from the NFL.
On the field, the Super Bowl is an athletic event and played genuinely by the competitors. However, the event surrounding the game is a made-for-TV spectacle paid for by the largest of America’s corporate entities. With an audience of over 200 million combined between the domestic and international audience, the game is an advertisement not only for product, but for a culture.
In America, the line between culture and commerce is already often blurred, perhaps even non-existent. What we see with the Super Bowl is the nation’s largest athletic event, and a celebration among its people, being a classic example of what Schiller described as “cultural imperialism.”
