Relative Something

I lost a few more hours of my life to football again last night as the opening game of this year’s NFL season was played by my home team, the Minnesota Vikings, against the New Orleans Saints. It just served to reveal to me, more of the ways I am getting old.

When I was a kid, I was truly excited by all things NFL related. Now, far from it. In all fairness, my first gripe of the night is something that goes far beyond just an NFL issue. It seems all facets of industry that strive to sell entertainment to the masses have fallen into a ridiculous pattern of trying to out-dazzle anything that has come before. It used to be that a championship game was so huge that they demonstrated it by making the half-time show into a spectacle that could stand on its own, even without a football game. Then the half-time became so big they gave it extra time. Pretty soon the commercials of the championship game became as noteworthy as the half-time show. Football isn’t the only place this is happening, but the NFL could be the poster-child of superfluous excess heaping glitz and glamor that is ultimately tarnishing a product that once was able to stand on its own and sell itself.

Before last night’s kickoff, the warm-up act was a couple of full-production live music performances by artists who normally perform their acts as the main event. It’s distracting. It makes the music artists appear second-rate. I’m getting old.

Then the talking heads that are there for the actual football game announce that they have a special news report from their special reporter from “Sports Illustrated.” He proceeds to tell us that another quarterback (Tom Brady), from a team not playing tonight (the Patriots), was involved in a car crash today, but was not injured and practiced today. Oh, thanks for that!

Then at half-time, they tell us that they have breaking news to report… Same special reporter, same quarterback from that other team, agreed to a 4-year contract extension. Thank goodness they were able to break in with that morsel. Why am I not buying what they are selling anymore?

It is a new season, but I’m feeling older than ever.

Oh, can you tell from my ranting? My team got beat in their opening game. Yeah, they eventually did have a football game in there somewhere. The pre-game concert was a lot better than the football.