It's SUPER BOWL weekend! Stacey Cardalines Reporting...

 

The Super Bowl is this weekend, and it may be America's most social event that isn't Christmas or Thanksgiving. Even people with no interest in football can enjoy the Super Bowl, either for the funny commercials or the A-list musical acts or even just to gather together with friends. Yes, the Super Bowl has something for everyone, even on SL.

Ideally, you'd be out with a bunch of friends at some gathering for the big game, but life isn't always ideal. Instead of chomping chicken wings with your friends, maybe you're stuck at home or work. That sucks because no one likes to miss a party, but there you are. You may even be such an intense football geek that you can't properly concentrate on the game if there are a bunch of non-believers there who just want to see the Doritos commercial. I actually get like that when the Patriots make it to the big game. Regardless of your motivation, you're still alone for the game.

However, if you have a computer, you can still at least experience the game with people. Just log on to SL and find a party! Don't know where the party is, you say? No worries. I know just the place.

First, we need to make sure you are up to speed on the basics. I can't have my people go to sims and be complete football zeroes, can I? I have a reputation to live down to.

The Super Bowl was born from the merger of two rival football leagues, the traditional NFL and the upstart AFL. At first, the AFL champ would play the NFL champ. After the 1970 merger of the leagues, they mixed the teams up, and the game was played between conference champions. The NFL won the first few, before Joe Namath scored the first AFL win. The Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Engand Patriots lead the list with 6 Super Bowl wins each. The Los Angeles Rams won the last one, and this year's game is between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles are favored to win by 1.5 points, in a game where the mob has decided that the two teams will combine for 51 points. There is no way to score half a point in the NFL, but that 1.5-point spread is just a gambling failsafe against the game being decided by a point. You can also bet on goofy things like who will score first, whether one team or another will fumble, and stuff like that. These are called Prop Bets. You can bet on how long Chris Stapleton will hold the "and the rocket's red glaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare" note in the national anthem, and you can bet on whether Rhianna will open an umbrella during the halftime show. I know a guy who won 500 bucks once when Christina Aguilera wore pantyhose to sing the national anthem.

I have no idea who Chris Stapleton is, but that's more my fault than his. I'd guess that he's either a country singer or a pretty boy/dancer-type guy. I stopped being musically hip when the Wu-Tang Clan started to fall off.

The Super Bowl is America's most-watched television event and is second only to the World Cup if you count the rest of the world. The seven most-watched American programs ever are all Super Bowls, with only the M*A*S*H* finale cracking the top 8. The 2012 Super Bowl was watched by 111 million people. The first Biden/Trump debate, which would help decide who would be running the free world for 4 years, only got 63 million viewers. Of course, nobody got their spine snapped at the Biden/Trump debates, and there were no cheerleaders.

If you want to run a commercial during the game, you'd better have $5 million handy. The high price stems from the massive viewership the game draws, as well as the fact that the advertisers go out of their way to make the commercials be very entertaining. Many, many people go to the water cooler the day after the game and only talk about commercials. The Bud Light Frogs, Where's The Beef, "Thanks, Mean Joe" and Puppymonkeybaby were all Super Bowl commercials. Betty White's career revival was born out of a Super Bowl ad. Farrah Fawcett's first national gig was a Super Bowl commercial.

One year, my husband and his friends got very drunk for the game, which was being played in California or somewhere while my native Massachusetts was having a fierce nor'easter. Our power went out. Faced with a no-TV disaster, I had everyone make a plate, we loaded into the largest SUV that we had, and we drove laps around tiny Duxbury while listening to the game on the car radio. We got pulled over by the police once. I got about halfway through the story I just told you, and the cop just shook his head and goes "Drive up and down the beach road, you won't kill anyone that way." He took a Cop Tax of several buffalo fingers and a Pepsi. I believe it was St. Louis/Tennessee Super Bowl.

Now, back to stuck-on-SL-for-the-game You. Rather than insulting my readership by saying "You have no friends and no party invites," I will instead assume that you are such a football fiend that you can't watch with other people. Yet, you may still wish to be among people, just for the camaraderie. SL is good for that. There are sims that host Super Bowl parties, and you can go to these sims and pay as much attention as you feel like paying.

If your girl asks you some stupid question during a key point in the game and you are physically at a party, it would be considered poor form if you just ignored her question for ten minutes while the drama played out. You can do that on SL easily, however. I do it all the time, almost always for less important reasons. If your guy is a dinosaur and he thinks you're better served to feed him and his friends than watching the game (women make up 35% of the Super Bowl audience, and the number grows substantially every year), you'll be having an argument at a physical party. On SL, you can just tell him to order some Chinese delivery. 

This is important. I missed Janet Jackson's tits because I was handing nachos to someone during the 2004 Super Bowl.

You can avoid all of that by going to Rockin' Robin's for their weekend-long Super Bowl party. One of the pictures in this article is their schedule board, so that saves Stacey some typing. 

They have 9 live acts, a full football stadium with a performer stage set up, and the stadium even has locker rooms. You can get pom poms for your favorite team. The main event will be a weekend-long dance party on the football field. If you are alone for the Super Bowl, a good-sized crowd is just a teleport away. I was there taking pics at 1 AM on a Thursday, and the DJ had a good crowd. I'd imagine the Super Bowl will be teeming with folks.

Rockin Robin's is a go-to spot for me, as they always have the sim set up for various sports and holiday events. You could do a lot worse than to have RR as a regular stop on your rounds. Look for Eve Canadi, tell her I sent you, and you'll be taken care of.

Rockin' Robin's... http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Rockin%20Robin/132/134/81