What we learned from Super Bowl Opening Night
The players are incredibly gracious, and other takeaways from the event.
COMMENTARY
ATLANTA — Super Bowl Opening Night is what would happen if there were a Nonsense Mode on Madden ’19.
Until two years ago it was known as Media Day, when reporters would have one-stop shopping for interviews and information for the assorted stories they’d file over the course of the week. Not to go all back-in-my-day on you, but they feel like the good old days now. Only occasionally would there be a buzz-worthy development that had little to do with the game. Remember the Shannon Sharpe-Ray Buchanan feud before Super Bowl XXXII? Yeah, neither do I, really. It was pre-social media, and we were there to talk about football.
But the NFL, in its relentless quest to monetize everything and/or turn it into NFL Network programming, moved Media Day to prime time three years ago for the Broncos-Panthers Super Bowl, then changed the name to Opening Night for the Patriots-Falcons matchup.
And it’s worked, because of course so many of us are suckers for the NFL’s wily ways to separate us from our cash. Tickets to Opening Night cost $29 this year, and fans filled three-fourths of the lower bowl at State Farm Arena, and maybe half of the second deck.
I don’t get it, but the fans, the majority of whom were decked out in Patriots gear, seemed to enjoy it. I guess it’s cool to see your heroes and favorites up close, even if they’re not that close at all, but instead swimming in a sea of cameras while a countdown clock marks how much time they still have to do this.
I’m going to need more evidence in the coming years to confirm this, but it seems that the move to prime-time programming has actually made it less of a spectacle. Actor/comedian J.B. Smoove, a regular at the event, made the rounds, as did “Double Dare’’ host Marc Summers, so it wasn’t exactly brimming with A-listers. There was a clown. But not as many dressed up in bewildering costumes as in the past. I didn’t even see Tom Brady get a single marriage proposal this year.
Or maybe it’s just that even with the move to prime time, the whole Opening Night scene remains as familiar as seeing the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
A few other takeaways from Opening Night:
■ The players are incredibly gracious. To kids, that is. I mean, the Patriots are fine to the media during their obligation. Their roster is loaded with bright guys, they know what they can say and what they can’t, they’re helpful with general football questions in particular, and they’re engaging enough. But there are always a few kids at Opening Night — the sport card company Panini always has a contest winner there as a kid reporter — and the players, almost to a man, light up when they see them, whether it’s James White (and others) playing a quick game of ring toss or Brady trying to toss a ball into a basket made of goal posts (he did it successfully, of course), or Gronk cheerfully telling one that he was probably 6 foot 2 by the time he was in ninth grade. Bill Belichick? He doesn’t play along, but that should be common knowledge by now. Gotta stay on brand.
■ Scott Hanson is the NFL’s aural overlord. Sometimes it’s tough to hear what the players are saying during their interviews even with a microphone in front of them. Why? Because Hanson, best known as the affable host of “NFL RedZone’’, never stops talking. Hanson is the main host of Opening Night, and his chattering, which is piped into the arena, is full of factoids you have already heard this week (Julian Edelman and Sean McVay played against each other in college) or have known for a generation (Tom Brady was the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft). It’s that relentless narration that really gives the event that you’re-trapped-in-an-Xbox feel.
■ Call it the house that Al Horford built. Opening Night took place on the carpet-covered court at State Farm Arena. Among the banners hanging from the rafters is one that read “2015 Southeast Division Champs’’. The Hawks went 60-22 that year, but got swept by the Cleveland LeBrons in the Eastern Conference finals. A season to be proud of, for sure. Hey, not every sports franchise has 17 championship banners. Or for that matter, five, with a sixth within reach.
