This past Sunday, a record 202.4 million viewers across all networks tuned into part of Super Bowl LVIII, marking a 10% increase from last year’s Super Bowl and the highest number of people watching the same broadcast in the history of television. Across the United States, friends and family gathered to watch the 58th annual Super Bowl crown the champion of the National Football League (NFL) as the Kansas City Chiefs faced off against the San Francisco 49ers in the culmination of a season of American football. On campus, some dorms canceled Sunday night dorm meetings and hosted watch parties as opportunities for students to gather and watch the game together. In addition to serving as a major sporting event, the Super Bowl is, in many ways, a uniquely American event and a cultural phenomenon in the United States, taking the spot as the second highest day of food consumption in the United States. Even for those who don’t typically follow football, the high-stake game, halftime show, and iconic ad campaigns of the Super Bowl is a snapshot of American pop culture that draws widespread public attention, overtaking TV channels and streaming services alike.
This year, on top of the usual anticipation for the halftime show and football championship showdown, the excitement around the Super Bowl was bolstered by the attendance of Taylor Swift, singer-songwriter and TIME’s 2023 Person of the Year, and her relationship with Travis Kelce, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Whether we were watching for spectacular performances from our favorite team, stolen shots of Swift in the bleachers, the best advertisements of the night, or high-energy lyrics and dance moves by Usher, Alicia Keys, or another performer during the halftime show, the Super Bowl had something for almost everybody. Its charming point was that there was no singular focus of the event, making it accessible to a wide audience of all ages, interests, and prior knowledge of sports. And with this year’s extensive palate of content-rich topics bringing in record-breaking viewership, the Super Bowl reveals something essential about us as humans and social creatures: our natural attraction to entertainment — drama, gossip, and all the latest buzz.
From a quick “did you watch the game last night?” to heated debates over the funniest commercial, topics surrounding the Super Bowl often take the place of early morning greetings, conversation-starters, and pleasantries the morning after the game and for days to follow. Because of how integral the Super Bowl is to American culture as a yearly intersection of the nation’s most well-known sport and its most famous pop stars, even those who do not typically watch football or consider themselves sports fans tune in to be a part of the fun. And because events like the Super Bowl only happen once in a while and feature performances, celebrations, and drama that take place out of the ordinary, they bring the rare excitement and thrill to our daily lives that we crave. For many of us, the luxury of ever-stimulating occurrences appearing in our day-to-day existences is not something we can realistically expect, making external sources of novelty, gossip, and controversy all the more appealing. Be it the Super Bowl, the latest celebrity relationship, the rumored cast of a highly-anticipated movie — all these topics draw us out of the molds of our own realities and into a faraway world where we are free to engage with interests that go beyond ourselves and the people immediately around us. It is precisely the distant yet dramatic nature of these events that enables us to bond with others more easily. Rather than searching for ways to start a conversation or find a shared interest, we can instead reach for subjects like the Super Bowl that encompass a variety of subtopics that a diverse range of people can comment or share their perspectives on to find ways to connect with others.
Of course, there is an important line that we must not cross when it comes to involving ourselves with the drama of industries like entertainment and sports where much of the focus is placed on people who lead very different lives than us; over-investment can result in the consequences of parasocial relationships, excessive comparison, and poor self-esteem. But in moderation, the drama that happens beyond our lives can serve as a comforting form of escapism that enables us to share our experiences with others. Even if we’re just ranking the halftime shows from most memorable to least or judging companies’ attempts at making the quirkiest commercial, events like the Super Bowl provide us with opportunities to spend meaningful time with friends and family – moments that, regardless of how superficial or silly they may feel, will stay with us for a lifetime.
