TALK SPORT
The NFL isn’t dragged down by the athletic abomination that is VAR.
Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers promises to be a banger, no matter how the final score ends up.
With The Sphere glowing with NFL helmets and Dana White’s UFC crashing the party by riding the NFL’s coattails, the Big Game has more in common with the World Cup final than a late May fixture between Manchester City and West Ham.
There’s also a two-week media build up toward the all-encompassing Super Bowl, which will be bigger than ever this year, thanks to the NFL embracing the financial power of sports betting and enjoying an extended winter holiday in Las Vegas.
Who’s more popular: Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes or Manchester City striker Erling Haaland?
What can’t be debated is that the NFL keeps growing bigger and becoming more international – all 32 teams could eventually play one overseas game per season –while the Premier League keeps being forced to kick away the threat of a dangerous new European Super League.
Throw in hours and hours of surreal pregame coverage across multiple TV channels, a halftime show – this year featuring Usher – that lists Apple as an official sponsor, and too many A-list celeb celebrities to list, and the Super Bowl combines the best of a heavyweight boxing match with a Formula One grid walk — in a truly American way.
Nothing can compare to the NFL in America and no one would think of trying to usurp a sport that keeps setting TV records during a time when viewership, in general, keeps falling and streaming has become an essential fact of modern life.
The recent conference championship game between Kansas City and the Baltimore Ravens averaged 55.4 million viewers, becoming the most-watched AFC championship in NFL history.
The NFC Championship between San Francisco and the Detroit Lions averaged 56.6 million, which was the fourth most-watched non-Super Bowl broadcast in Fox’s network history.
[…] The combined power of the Champions League, Euros, FA and Carabao Cups is a reminder that there’s a reason so many Americans wake up early just to watch ‘real’ football being played in other countries.
But what separates the NFL is its superb playoff system.
Since 1967, the Super Bowl has become bigger and bigger and bigger.
Now it’s taking over super-flashy Las Vegas for the biggest American football party of all-time.
The NFL — and the Super Bowl — have become so big that Swift is scheduled to fly across an ocean, just to watch the big game in person once her gig in Tokyo is done.
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