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February 2, 2004
It's Dough, Rave, Me
Super Bowl has turned into a celebration of greed, partying and self-aggrandizement, with football almost an afterthought
BY LENOX RAWLINGS
HOUSTON - The game is the game. The Super Bowl vibe is something else. The Super Bowl vibe is loud and sweaty and often greedy. The Super Bowl vibe is a grown man thrusting a pen at an overgrown ex-linebacker, a young woman scurrying across a skywalk in pursuit of Janet Jackson, an aging adult raising the ageless question: "The face looks familiar, but who is that?"
The Super Bowl vibe is aromatic hickory burning at a makeshift barbecue, earthy fertilizer drifting over the Astros' retro ballpark from a nearby plant and stale beer spilled at the corner of Texas and Main.
The Super Bowl vibe is packed streets from noon until 2 a.m. and trashy streets from 2 a.m. until noon, the residue of outdoor concerts and no-rules drinking. Garbage cans look like ice cream cones, with paper and mashed food spilling over the top. Plastic beer bottles settle in gutters and die in the landscaping boxes outside the Federal Detention Facility.
The Super Bowl vibe is thousands of fans lining up for a trip through an interactive NFL exhibit and a dozen hotel guests competing for an overpriced cab and 30 hungry beasts waiting for the table that may never come, at least before 10:30 p.m.
But most of all, the Super Bowl vibe is about acquisition. It's about acquiring beer for $7 a bottle in the hotel lobby and acquiring tickets for hundreds over their $600 face value and acquiring any licensed clothing carrying the implicit message: "Me. I Was There."
No one can dodge the acquisition market. Ticket vendors - some professionals, lots of amateurs - hang on every downtown corner.
"Got any extras?"
"Selling any tickets, sir?"
"Tickets?"
The voices arrive in all sorts of packages: Twangy Texas, Brusque Jersey, Coy Cajun, Urgent Urban. The voices multiply as you approach a hotel. The bodies thicken, blocking the path, creating an obstacle course. They are mostly big guys, males in leather coats and baggy pants, many with oversized athletics shoes and undersized manners.
By midafternoon Friday, with the $7 beer flowing and the speculators routinely discussing $1,700 tickets, the lobbies became virtually impassible. Aggressive traders jostled bystanders and bumped into bump-and-grind dancers on a pinball dash across the stone floor.
The questions sounded like machine-gun fire.
"Got any extras?"
"Tickets, anyone got tickets?"
"Sir, tickets?"
All this occurs inside a security blanket. At the hotels, security guards restrict elevator passage to guests with keys. At a few touchy hotels, security guards perform this function outside the front door. At official sites, guards wearing neon-yellow nylon jackets sift through every bag.
The list of banned objects at Reliant Stadium covered almost everything other than the human body and textiles draped over the human body. In the current security climate, the measures seem only a couple of steps beyond ordinary, although it was the first time that most reporters had received a pat-down check for guns and other contraband.
Terrorism fears fuel the security machine, naturally. Long before Sept. 11, 2001, the potential for terrorism at the Super Bowl became the subject of a book and movie, Black Sunday.
No annual stage can match the Super Bowl. The audience estimate for yesterday's international broadcast: 800 million people in 220 countries and territories.
The 10 most-watched TV shows in American history were Super Bowls, led by the 138.9 million viewers for the game last January between Tampa Bay and Oakland.
Eight of the 15 highest-rated shows in American TV, based on audience share, are Super Bowls. The top three shows - the M*A*S*H final episode, Dallas and Roots-Part VIII - are followed by the 16th Super Bowl (49ers-Bengals in January 1982) and the 17th Super Bowl (Redskins-Dolphins).
Nothing sells like the Super Bowl. In the 38 years of showdowns between the National and American champions, the television ad rates have climbed from $42,000 for a 30-second spot to $2.3 million. The rates more than doubled between 1995 ($1.15 million) and last night.
The $6-$12 ticket prices at Los Angeles' Memorial Coliseum in 1967 jumped to $100 for the 22nd Super Bowl and crossed the $400 threshold two years ago. Tickets for the Panthers-Patriots game started at $400 and topped out at $600, with most costing $500.
Money moves the Super Bowl. Tickets move the money, and the relentless entrepreneurs moving the tickets become stars in their personal movies. They share roles with a cast of thousands, with all those celebrities and celebrity chasers jamming the Houston streets. The movie's working title: The Super Bowl Is Really About Me.
Got any extras?
• Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com