Super Bowl 2025

The Super Bowl poses many challenges. To the viewer, he/she must – if he/she wants to see it live – stay awake between the hours of 11.30pm and 3-30am.

As it’s mainly an event, rather than a sporting spectacle of competitiveness, the commentary must cater for the casual as well as the fervent viewer.

Whereas the interval in most sporting events is an opportunity to refuel, visit the loo and (above all) avoid repetitive adverts and bland analysis, the Superbowl interval is the time for the world’s best known singers like Taylor Swift to perform.

In a weekend of surprises when England beat a sloppy France in rugby’s Six Nations and  Plymouth Argyle knocked Liverpool out of the Cup, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the favourites Kansas Chiefs, who had seemed nailed-on to win their third Super Bowl, 44-22.

They did so by nullifying the Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahones who was sacked 6 times and threw 2 interceptions.

Once – in the days of imaginative Channel 4 sports broadcasting – American football was all the rage. Games are still played at Wembley and the Tottenham stadium but it’s now less popular.

People still have their favourite teams – mine is the Miami Dolphins whom I have seen twice.

They played then in the Joe Robbie Stadium which had much better amenities than any comparable soccer stadium.

The other feature was a team that could up-sticks and move to another city. Many Premiership clubs have – or have had – American owners (the Kronkes at Arsenal, the Glazers  at Manchester United, the Fenway Group at Liverpool, Todd Boehly at Chelsea, Shahid Khan at Fulham) and they are not always that popular.

As someone once observed (of the US and the UK), a case of “Two countries divided by the same language”.