Christian Sopkowiak/Winonan
According to some Winona State University students, during Super Bowl XLVIII, the game quickly became the least entertaining spectacle of the night.
Katie Pearce, a sophomore at Winona State and an avid sports fan, said, “I did not enjoy watching the game. It was boring. Halftime was more entertaining than the game.”
On Sunday, Feb. 2, the Denver Broncos met the Seattle Seahawks in a battle for NFL supremacy. Every football fan had to choose a side.
Winona State junior and die-hard Minnesota Vikings fan Shawn Bromelkamp has always loved watching the Super Bowl, and this year was no different.
“I wanted the Broncos to win. For one, I’m a big Peyton Manning fan and wanted him to win his second Super Bowl,” Bromelkamp said.
This game pitted an unstoppable force against an immovable object. The best offense in NFL history faced the best defense since the 1985 Chicago Bears.
“I follow football. On the surface it seemed like it would be a good matchup and entertaining game,” Bromelkamp said.
Bromelkamp enjoys watching the Super Bowl for the two reasons most people watch it: it is the last football game for months, and it is a great social event.
But the matchup did not live up to the hype. The final score of 44-8 Seahawks tells one side of the story. The fans’ reactions tell the other side.
“I was most surprised by the Broncos’ struggles because they were supposed to have the number one offense in the league and Peyton really was not playing very well,” Pearce said. “Turnovers usually decide games like that, and the Broncos had a lot of turnovers.”
Most fans were stunned by the struggles of Peyton Manning and the Broncos offense. Manning’s struggles stemmed from the Seahawks’ dominance at the line of scrimmage and controlling possession time.
“Seattle is a very talented and well-coached team, but I thought that there was next to no chance that they would be able to stop Manning the way they did,” Bromelkamp said.
Manning’s mastery of the game throughout his entire career immediately made Bromelkamp wonder how the Seahawks stopped him so effectively.
Although Manning set the Super Bowl record for most passes completed during the game, he was unproductive in moving the ball down the field, scoring points and converting on third down.
Because of this incompetence, some football fans may have found the commercials and the halftime show more entertaining. Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers rocked the halftime show while a few commercials stood out among the rest.
“The David Beckham one and the Budweiser one with the puppy and the horse were my favorites. Those were better than the game,” Pearce said.
Pearce, who is a devoted Packers fan and has loved sports for as long as she can remember, believes that the Super Bowl was unexciting.
Which raises the question, why was this Super Bowl the most-watched TV event in U.S. history when the main event was so dull?
No matter the game itself, Bromelkamp will always see the true purpose of the Super Bowl.
“Just the social spectacle that it’s become: even people that don’t regularly follow football join together for the game and get excited for it. It’s a fun and uniting game for everyone,” Bromelkamp said.
