J'aime Le Super Bowl

News & Trends

Afganis call it "the donkey's game" and laugh at it because the
ball is shaped like a fruit called kharboozah. Nonetheless, the Super
Bowl has become a worldwide event: 800 million people in 147 countries
watched last year's game, 85 percent of them outside the U.S. Why so much
global interest in what one New Zealander dismisses as "big padded men
crashing into other big padded men"?

When PT posed this question overseas via the Internet, we found
that foreign viewers cared more about the surrounding hoopla than about
the sport itself. "All of American culture is summed up in three hours,"
wrote Londoner Allstair Jeffs. "People in developing countries are
fascinated by the technology used in the telecast," added Jai Maharaj
from India. As for the actual game, most respondents disliked what one
Belgian dubbed its interruptions continues, preferring the non-stop
action of soccer.

Why is the staccato pace of football more acceptable to Americans?
Perhaps because it jibes with our sense of time, suggests Robert Levine,
Ph.D., a psychologist at California State University, Fresno. "Soccer
games [slowly] build to a crescendo and finally the goal comes," says
Levine. "There is something primal about this rhythm; countries that
appreciate soccer value it. In America, we need constant stimulation and
change."