O P I N I O N

NOT THAT PROFOUND

By Nathan Graziano

Aside from being one of the most viewed annual sporting events worldwide, the Super Bowl is primarily a celebration of everything American—gluttony, debauchery, consumerism, violence.

Being such a sacred day for the American way, I can understand the reluctance to mess with the ritual. For example, the Super Bowl is always held on a Sunday evening, which has proven to be a good time for the American people to gather with their respective tribes and gouge themselves on greasy food and lose their shirts gambling¹ while watching the athletes develop CTE in slow motion.

I was also raised Catholic, so I know a little something about archaic rituals that seem utterly senseless when viewed through a modern lens. I’ve learned that it is best to not think too hard about it or advocate for any kind of commonsense change when it comes to rituals.

Just drink your beer, eat your buffalo chicken dip, shut up and enjoy the ritual. Right?

Not so fast.

While this suggestion might seem like blasphemy to the football traditionalist, it is high time that the NFL change the Super Bowl from Sunday to Saturday night.

By the way, this is far from a novel suggestion, or remotely my own. The idea of changing the Super Bowl to Saturday has been around for many years, and one of the reasons it is frequently dismissed is the tired excuse that NFL games were traditionally played on Sundays—the exception being Monday Night Football, which premiered in 1970. And Sundays are the traditional day for big sporting events.

But now the NFL has found ways to monetize games on nearly every night of the week.

These days we have Thursday Night Football, presented by Jeff Bezos and Amazon Prime, and the NFL also plays some random games on Saturdays, as well as the Saturday Wildcard and Division playoffs. And there are additional games on Christmas, Friday nights, Sunday mornings in London and soon Australia in 2026.

If the NFL can make a buck and gamblers can place a bet, no day is sacrosanct. Pretty soon the NFL will start airing Tuesday Afternoon Football streaming only on some random channel that costs $400 a year to subscribe, and fans will subscribe and fans will watch it.

So why can’t the Super Bowl be played on a day when most of the country doesn’t have to wake up the next morning and head to work tired, hungover and sprinting to the restrooms while still digesting the six pounds of chili they ate during The Puppy Bowl²?

Why can’t it be played on a day when younger kids can stay up a little later and watch the entire game because they don’t have to go school the next morning?

According to commissioner Roger Goodell, the biggest reason the NFL has been so intransigent to the change has to do with television ratings.

“The reason we haven’t done it in the past is simply just from an audience standpoint,” Goodell said in a 2018 interview. “The audiences on Sunday night are so much larger. Fans want to have the best opportunity to be able to see the game and we want to give that to them, so Sunday night is a better night.”

Again, I’m simply not buying the fact that you’re going to draw a bigger audience on a Sunday night than Saturday. And even if this is the case, what about the businesses who are affected the morning after the Super Bowl?

An estimated 16.1 million employees will call into work on Monday with the Super Bowl Flu, which will cost companies somewhere in the range of $6 billion in lost productivity.

This is to say nothing of the revenue that restaurants and bars could generate hosting Super Bowl parties with food and drink specials on a Saturday night. And I’m willing to bet Uber drivers wouldn’t mind the extra patrons, either.

If President Donald Trump is going to continue issuing insane and unconstitutional executive orders, why not issue an executive order that requires the Super Bowl to be played on Saturday instead of Sunday night? Legally speaking, it’s specious, but that hasn’t stopped Trump yet.

Go ahead, Mr. President, make America great not by gutting the rights of Americans³, but by changing the Super Bowl to Saturday.

1. Which is now legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia. God Bless America!  ↩︎
2. The Puppy Bowl would need to bw moved to Saturday as well. ↩︎
3. Sadly, Donny/Elon, immigrants and the transgender community will still be invited to watch the game. For now. ↩︎

Reach Nate Graziano at ngrazio5@yahoo.com.