I rather like baseball, but I must admit I find American Football incomprehensible and slightly absurd: much of it seems to be a bad game of rugby played by motorcylists. Although, in its defence (pronounced dee-fence), the very best moments are spectacular.
This year I forced myself to watch Superbowl XLIII, preferring to view online via www.ustream.com and not on the BBC in order to see the advertising. The Superbowl has over the years become a showcase for American advertising at its extravagant best – and the commercials now form part of the overall razzamatazz . A few—most famously the 1984 60-second spot for the launch of the Apple Macintosh, written by my New York colleague Steve Hayden—have entered advertising mythology.
These commercials are spectacularly expensive to make and to air. Rather countercyclically, the cost of a 30-second spot has increased since 2008 and now stands at $3m.
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