Happy Super Bowl Weekend again!

With all the breaking news yesterday, we decided to put our Super Bowl tidbits in their own extra Brew. 

Super Bowl Weekend, A Return to Fun Ads

Sunday’s Super Bowl LVIII features a match-up between the Kansas City Swifts … I mean, Chiefs … and the San Francisco 49ers. It should be a tight one between two great teams. San Francisco is currently a very slight 2-point favorite.

The game will also feature the fierce competition of Super Bowl ads.

Here’s the good news. Advertisers are shying away from the woke, politically-tinged ads of recent years that were as enjoyable as a shin splint. According to Newsmax, you can expect to see lots of humorous ads … and the return of the famous Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales.

Speaking of Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light is trying to earn back the support of its traditional customers after last year’s Dylan Mulvaney debacle by going back to the humorous guy-friendly ads that put them on the map.

Here’s the Super Bowl ad they released this week. It ain’t sophisticated and the condescending Bud ad exec who hated Bud Light’s traditional branding (and customers), would wrinkle her unemployed nose. But you may get a kick out of it.

In case you are wondering, CBS is banking about $7 million per :30 second spot. That’s about the same as last year, but up 75% from a decade ago.

Gambling on the Game

A downside to the game? This year’s Super Bowl is expected to break betting records, with an estimated 68 million American planning to wager, whether legally or illegally. Plus the game’s in Vegas, and the Super Bowl’s the biggest thing to come to town since the Rat Pack. 

So-called “prop bets” are adding to the gambling fever. Aside from the usual strange ones, like “Who will win the coin toss?” or “What color Gatorade will be poured on the head of the winning coach?” this year includes Taylor Swift-connected prop bets. According to Forbes, legal online betting sites aren’t taking bets involving Swift, but Forbes has come up with a handy “Taylor Swift prop bet” sheet regardless.

#16 is “Will Kelce propose to Swift after the game?” Make faces all you want. You know, if it happens, the Sunday before Valentine’s Day, with championship confetti falling all around, you’ll be weeping too. “I’m not crying. It’s the jalapeno in the dip!”

Football Now “America’s Sport”? 200 Million Reasons The Answer Seems to Be “Yes.”

The Super Bowl is America’s biggest secular holiday. But is football America’s biggest sport?

For generations, baseball was considered “America’s pastime.” But now it looks like baseball has been overtaken by football. A Pew Research Center survey out Monday asked, “If you had to choose one sport as being ‘America’s sport,’ even if you don’t personally follow it, which sport would it be?” 53% of U.S. respondents said football, while 27% said baseball.

Indeed, while baseball has become more international, our sport of football remains Red, White and Blue. When the rest of the world plays “football,” they’re talking about that little sport where people run around kicking a ball back and forth to each other and dive to the ground acting like they’ve been mortally wounded.

We play FOOTBALL!!  American football. And we watch American football.

According to Forbes, on Sunday, two-thirds of Americans surveyed will be watching the Chiefs-49ers square off in Super Bowl LVIII. This could translate to 200 million people. (An audience of around 110 sounds more reasonable.)

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, co-author, with John Zmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and co-author of the counter-terrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.