Today was another reason why the NFL playoffs, and the NFL overall is great theatre.
I can't think of one person besides a few residents in Ocean Beach, or a spattering of communities north of Tijuana that had the Chargers winning today's game at Indianapolis. "DVR-proof" I believe is the term that braodcasters use, and the NFL fits this to a Tee - you just cannot predict this stuff. You have to see it live to belive it. And thus,we are hooked.
Here's a scenario. LT goes down in the first. Ok, that's like spotting the Colts two twouchdowns - and seeing as how they were at home and already favored by a touchdown, the Chargers are already down 21-0 after LT goes down. Wrong. This is a false sense of reasoning. The score was still 7-0, it was what it was, as they say. Upsets are upsets because someone out in the mystical authoritarian world declared one team to have a "better chance of winning" than the other team. These mystic forces guide the reasoning ofever sports fan and convince them that they have nailed the formula to proper prognostication. It is this interaction between product and viewer that the NFL marketing gurus have mastered and what makes the NFL so entertaining, and ultimately, so successful - the Colts may have been favored, but by who? A bunch of talking heads in suits? I bet you watch everyone on sports television and think, "I know just as much as that idiot." I know I do. But I don't. It's their job to know that stuff. They can talk football for hours, I could probably only talk minutes. But you still think it, and of course, you still watch it.
Tis the birth of a DVR-proof spoting event - it democratizes the viewership. Interaction. Everyone thinks they know sports. Can you break down stock trading? Tell me you had Merck to drop half a cent by closing on Friday, bringing their yearly total to $235 a share.
Sports at its core is entertainment - ask the Greeks. Entertainment at its core is theatre - ask the Greeks. Drama, Tension, Denoumount, add a new age of marketing, media hype, television, and you have the NFL, America's only DVR/Strike/Online Revenue Sharing/Jump the Shark - proof entity on television. Sports or not.
So the NFL wins again by bringing you the two Conference championship games that everyone had in the pool...right. I just can't wait till March Madness when I struggle about which one and two seeds I put in the final four and then wince when I am inevitably wrong about those as well.
