Super Bowls where everyone in America watched the same thing
One game, one channel, and the entire country glued to the same screen.
Sports
Super Bowl Sunday was the closest America got to a national holiday that nobody voted for. You didn’t need to follow football to watch it. Your grandmother watched it. Your neighbour who didn’t own a TV came over to watch it. The mailman talked about it on Monday.
In 1982, Super Bowl XVI between the 49ers and the Bengals drew 85 million viewers. There were only 230 million people in the whole country. The commercials became their own event — people shushed you during the ads instead of during the game.
The food was always the same
Chips and dip, cold cuts, devilled eggs if someone was feeling fancy, and a cooler full of Budweiser. Nobody made a “charcuterie board.” Nobody called it a “watch party.” You just had people over and they brought beer and you watched the game and that was it.
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