World Champions? Surely you mean American champions. Didn't see any other country participating in the NFL this past year...
Of course, if the best players from each NFL team were picked to represent USA in a real World Championship and said "Team America" beat another country in the World Championship final - then they could claim to be champions of the world.
But it's not just American Football that claims it's winners are "World" Champs. Our local DiamondBacks were called "World Champions" when they won the World Series last year. Again, unless I missed it, didn't see any other country participating.
Anyhoo, nice to see the underdogs win. Nice to see U2 at half time. Cringed at the Mariah Carey lip-synch. Cringed at Terry Bradshaw and Paul McCartney butchering "A Hard Day's Night" - well at least one of them got the words right ;)
The commercials sucked this year with the exception of the '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon' check card commercial. As SuperBowls go it was really a bit tame....but the Pats won
Well, there are the Toronto Blue Jays and the Montreal Expos. Hockey has a few Canadian teams as well.
As for the commercials, I thought the Battle-Bots rip-off was funny, since I watch that show from time to time.
You know, they tell you that after high school, looks don't matter. You know what? THEY LIED! Exhibit A - Britney Spears & the Pepsi commercials. So much money, so little talent. I remember the half-time show at last year's Superbowl. That's when I learned, as so many other people did, that Britney Spears CANNOT SING. I swear, I thought Steven Tyler was gonna laugh out loud when she broke into the song. It was at that point I knew why she lip-synced at all her concerts.
Re:Let's Face It
jmm on 2002-02-04T18:43:38
Baseball has an excuse - the "World Series" winner wins a trophy names after the New York World (a newspaper which ceased to exist long ago). It's an embarassing excuse, since unless you know the real meaning of "World" it just sounds arrogant.
There is a World Cup for football. However that is for a game that applies feet to a ball; and where touching the ball with your hands is a foul unless you are a goalkeeper. America doesn't participate in any significant extent in this event, but claiming that title for the winner of the SuperBowl is US-centric in the extreme.
My mother is about to go to Mexico for a few weeks and was saying that she probably wouldn't be watching much of the upcoming winter Olympics. All they'll get there will be U.S. network TV; so she would see nothing except American athletes, as if presense of the rest of the world there was irrelevant. When she watches Olympics, she wants to watch the best performances, regardless of where those individuals happen to live. (This was based on her watching American coverage of the 2000 Olympics - she was travelling then, too.)Re:Let's Face It
pudge on 2002-02-04T19:56:17
America does participate significantly in the World Cup. I went to a U.S.-Colombia game that rocked, and the U.S. went on to pose a serious threat to Brazil in the next round.
Anyway, I don't see how you can't call the Patriots the world champions of football. "American" football is implied, and no other team in any other country could possibly beat them. Yes, it is US-centric, but so is American football.
And no, the other countries are not irrelevant, but they only have so many hours in the day to show the American athletes, and on American networks, American athletes are usually more important. It's not like there's a thing wrong with that, that is how it *should be*. And it is.
It would be nice if there were other ways to see the Olympics other than the networks that make their money catering to the American public, but there aren't (for us, anyway).Re:Let's Face It
jmm on 2002-02-04T20:44:15
And no, the other countries are not irrelevant, but they only have so many hours in the day to show the American athletes, and on American networks, American athletes are usually more important. It's not like there's a thing wrong with that, that is how it *should be*. And it is.
No, that is not how it should be. When the third place American gets most of the coverage and the first and second place non-Americans get no coverage at all, it shows a drastically skewed priorities.
Highlighting the performance of a country's own athletes is important, but it is not the only important thing to be covered. It is not even the most important, unless the target audience is incredibly self-centered.Re:Let's Face It
pudge on 2002-02-04T21:14:36
Americans want to watch Americans, whether they are in third place, or don't place at all. American TV is for Americans. This isn't rocket science, and it is not in any way wrong. It's the way it is and should be.
I suppose you can keep asserting it's wrong, but that doesn't make it so. Perhaps *you* don't want to see primarily Americans. So what? I don't want to see any figure skating. I don't expect the networks to care what I want and don't want.Re:Let's Face It
TorgoX on 2002-02-07T23:21:09
Americans want to watch Americans, whether they are in third place, or don't place at all. American TV is for Americans.
Speak for yourself, bucko! I'm an American, and all I want to watch is hot amateur Russian action. Athletic action, that is. Mostly.Re:Let's Face It
jmm on 2002-02-04T20:53:46
Anyway, I don't see how you can't call the Patriots the world champions of football. "American" football is implied, and no other team in any other country could possibly beat them. Yes, it is US-centric, but so is American football.
I'm the World Champion of shovelling driveways on Hillview Crescent, Pickering.
If something is only done in one small part of the globe, the phrase "world champions" is self-aggrandization.
For 90% of the world's population, football is implicitly "soccer", and American Football is something that is relatively unimportant (for most of them it is totally unknown).Re:Let's Face It
pudge on 2002-02-04T21:07:30
If something is only done in one small part of the globe, the phrase "world champions" is self-aggrandization.
Perhaps. On the other hand, much of the world actually watches the Super Bowl. You don't like that they are called World Champions? *shrug* I don't like that they eat raw fish. I don't complain.
For 90% of the world's population, football is implicitly "soccer", and American Football is something that is relatively unimportant (for most of them it is totally unknown).
I can't see what the distinction between soccer and football has to do with the topic at hand.Re:Let's Face It
jmm on 2002-02-04T21:06:10
America does participate significantly in the World Cup. I went to a U.S.-Colombia game that rocked, and the U.S. went on to pose a serious threat to Brazil in the next round.
I wasn't meaning that America didn't take part at all. They play and occassionally accomplish some results, although they have never been at the top as competitors. My main point though, was that the American people has never been interested significantly.Re:Let's Face It
pudge on 2002-02-04T21:15:48
Sure they have. Millions of Americans watched the World Cup games in 1994. How is that not "significant"?Re:Let's Face It
Matts on 2002-02-05T10:03:32
Perhaps because they did not repeat that viewing figure in 1998, or any of the world cups prior to that? How many watched from the US in 1998 anyway? I was unable to find any exact figures by country (except for the overall figure of 1 billion people watching the 1998 final), but the US is renouned throughout the world for its general disinterest in the world's most popular game.Re:Let's Face It
pudge on 2002-02-05T13:48:09
I agree the US doesn't watch it as much as most countries, I just disagree that the numbers that do are not "significant." Depends on how you define it, I suppose. Certainly far fewer than watch the Big Four major sports championship tournaments, or the Olympics, or the college tournaments, etc. But I watch, and I know a lot of people who do.
I think most Americans just realize that soccer, in comparison to other sports, sucks.;-)
BTW, USA just won the Gold Cup (the CONCACAF tournament) for the first time in 11 years! w00p!
