- Congrats to Indy, who had a convincing win against Chicago. Esp. big kudos to Tony Dungy, who probably should have been given a Super Bowl ring from Tampa Bay for the win they got a few years back the year after firing him.
- Congrats as well to the guys at Pizza Box Football, who showed once again how nice a simulation a dice game can be. They predicted an 13 point win for Indy (33-20) - the actual score was a 12 point win (29-17).
- Congrats as well to Careerbuilder.com for making some of the few ads that I found even mildly amusing.
- OTOH, as a person who has struggled w/pornography, I am way over GoDaddy.com. Blech.
- Finally, a great idea from Kevin Hendricks over at Church Marketing Sucks: What if church Super Bowl ™ parties were officially sanctioned events? A church registers with the NFL and reports all the needed details--screen size, capacity, accurate attendance numbers after the event, etc.--and follows whatever guidelines the NFL has (no charging admission, following copyright rules, etc.). Perhaps there's a small broadcast fee the church pays (but c'mon, NFL, the church is simply boosting your numbers, don't make them pay for that priviledge), perhaps to cover administration costs or to keep this on par with what sports bars have to do. In the end everybody wins. The NFL can have its power. The TV network partner and advertisers get more viewers--and (perhaps more importantly) a count of those viewers. And the local church can go ahead and have its Super Bowl ™ party and use the communal event to connect with people.
OK, my juices are flowing now. Time to start working on my next sermon.
Mark, I thought about you with this. It is a blurb from Preaching Now - an online newsletter from Preaching magazine (I am currently working for them)....
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to the winners of the Super Bowl: the Chicago Bears.
OK, I'm guessing you watched the game (even some of those $2.6 million commercials) or at least heard the score, and you know that Indianapolis actually prevailed. But to the residents of some African village soon, the Bears were and always will be victors of Super Bowl XLI.
That's because as soon as the game was over, Reebok representatives rushed onto the field with 288 championship caps and t-shirts, making sure Peyton Manning and team were seen in those garments that would be on sale at your local retailer on Monday morning. But that means there were an equal number of items on hand proclaiming the Bears as winners. What happened to those shirts and caps?
According to a story in the Feb. 4 New York Times, as soon as the game was concluded, the unused apparel was kept under lock and key, to avoid any renegade caps showing up on eBay. Then on Monday it was all shipped to a World Vision warehouse, from which it will soon be sent to an African village for distribution to people with no TVs and no football, and for whom the Bears will forever after be the winners.
So while we have some bones to pick with the NFL over refusing to let churches show large-screen displays of the game while allowing sports bars to do so, at least they got something right. Instead of just destroying 288 perfectly good -- if inaccurate -- shirts and caps, they get them into the hands of people for whom they will have real value.
And the Bears can know that somewhere in the world, they are winners after all.
Michael Duduit, Editor
That's a fine plan the NFL has there...only its not quite fool proof. I say that because I have a Tennessee Titans Super Bowl champions t-shirt...only the Titans lost their one appearance in the big game to the St. Louis Rams.
ReplyDeleteI was given the shirt as a gift from a friend, and have completely forgotten how he got his hands on it.
Oh well, I never wear it. Some 7 years later, its still too bittersweet to actually think about too often.