A Super Bowl Koan: Does The NFL Wish It Were A Tech Company? (siliconvalley.com)

Are tech companies cashing in on the popularity of Super Bowl -- or is the Super Bowl trying to get into the world of tech? An anonymous reader writes: The NFL hosted a startup pitch competition before the game. And they also ran tech-themed "future of football" ads during the game which showcased the robot tackling dummies that provide moving targets for training players. Lady Gaga's halftime show is even expected to feature hundreds of drones.

But Microsoft was also hovering around outside the stadium, pushing the concept of "social autographs" (digital signatures drawn onto images) with their Surface tablets. Intel ran ads during the game touting their 360-degree replay technology. Besides the usual game-day ads for beer, there were also several for videogames -- Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Mobile Strike, and a reality TV show parody suddenly turned into an ad for World of Tanks. So is technology subtly changing the culture of the Super Bowl -- or is the Super Bowl turning into a massive pageant of technology?
Are any Slashdot readers even watching the Super Bowl? All I know is the Bay Area Newsgroup reported that a Silicon Valley engineer ultimately earns more over their lifetime than the average NFL football player.

Comments

Social Autographs

[fibonacci8]

I know it's photoshopped, but is it a genuine photoshop? And how much is it worth?

Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Hates women and hates gays. Get your fucking yarn elsewhere.

Re:Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Gays bash Hobby Lobby as insensitive

Claiming that they have been insulted by judgmental employees of the Eighth Street Hobby Lobby, a group of gay men and women have cried foul over shabby treatment and are even boycotting the craft store.

The Westside store's general manager, meanwhile, maintains that none of his employees would ever discriminate against customers -- straight or gay. The Oklahoma-based chain store's owners have a strong fundamentalist religious philosophy and operate their organization with stated Christian principles.

But Colorado Springs resident Jeannie Tharp said she was insulted when she went to the store to buy some beads that were on sale. It was right around the time of August's Gay Pride Week, and Tharp said she was wearing a string of rainbow-colored beads in her long hair. When she asked an employee where she would find the sale beads, he asked her if she was wearing rainbow-colored beads because she was gay. Tharp was stunned but acknowledged she was.

"He said, 'I won't help you,'" Tharp said. "It was like he knew what they were for, and he was just getting confirmation.

"I just was dumbfounded. I had never experienced that in my life."

Aghast, Tharp found her beads and then told a store manager what had transpired. But the manager merely said, " 'Oh well,' like what was he supposed to do about it," she said.

"So I won't go back there, and I'm not the only one. For some reason, they just don't like gays."

'We don't serve your type'

Colorado Springs resident Jol Diehl, who is gay, said he knows of four couples who have been treated as suspect -- and even blatantly refused service by store employees.

Diehl said a couple he knows were recently shopping in the craft area of the store and, while looking at fabric samples, tried unsuccessfully to get help from employees. "One of the employees finally looked at them and said, 'We don't like dealing with your type here,'" he said.

After hearing similar stories from his friends, Diehl said he contacted an assistant store manager by phone two weeks ago. However, the manager dismissed the assertion as "ridiculous," Diehl said. Now he is considering organizing a boycott against the store.

"It's just the whole feeling they get that they are not wanted," Diehl said. "You want to be able to go and shop somewhere and know when you go in that particular store you are respected as a customer."

Diehl said he is aware of Hobby Lobby's strong religious dogma. As an ordained minister, he said, he preaches unconditional love.

But, he said, "it's one thing to shop somewhere, it's another thing to get beliefs shoved down your throat."

Diehl said that the manager he spoke with told him that he should write down the names of the employees the next time it happens. But that dismissal frustrated him further.

We're all human

This week, the store's general manager, Keith Meser, initially said he was aware of Diehl's complaint but dismissed the charge of discrimination as impossible.

"I know that nothing like this has ever happened," he said. "I'm wondering if they have the right store."

Meser said he and his assistant manager -- who had taken Diehl's complaint -- tried to imagine which employees could have discriminated but couldn't list any possible culprits. The issue has not been raised during any employee staff meetings, he said.

Meser said the store holds no policy against gay couples or individuals, and he sometimes sees men coming in together holding hands.

"I've seen them in the store together, and I help them," Meser said. "I even walk out to the car with them.

"They're human beings just like anything else."

However, Tharp said she also knows other gays who have been treated poorly if they enter the store with their partners. Now, she said, many of her straight friends are refusing to shop at the store in a

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

It it's cool to beat up, refuse service to, and dump on Trump supporters, right?

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes cuz nobody should tolerate intolerance.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

The hypocrisy speaks for itself. Thank you

Re:Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Hates women and hates gays. Get your fucking yarn^H^H^H sequins and feather boas elsewhere.

FTFY.

Anyhow, it's a Christian-based business. If you don't like their policies DON'T SHOP THERE.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

u r not intolerant if u r intolerant of intolerance.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that you are intolerant of a different opinion.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have ANY idea how incredibly ignorant you sound? You can't even use English correctly, and while making your argument, you also defeat your own argument within the same sentence.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

u sound like kkk

get out of here

Re: Hobby Lobby

[PopeRatzo]

It it's cool to beat up, refuse service to, and dump on Trump supporters, right?

No, it's totally uncool. But it is kind of fun to watch the Trump supporter snowflakes cry about it.

On the other hand, punching nazis is definitely cool. And 100% patriotic.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as a Christian based corporation. Corporations are not people.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as a muslim country. Just countries with severe terrorism problems.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Cmdln Daco]

Trump is President.

President Trump. Say it out loud. What do we have to complain about?

Are there really any nazis in the US? There are a few thousand KKK idiots, but in 2017 that's like wanting to be an Astronaut when you grow up.

The worst thing anybody can do is take idiots who say they are nazis or kkk members seriously. That gives them credibility.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Jew?

Re: Hobby Lobby

[PopeRatzo]

Are there really any nazis in the US?

Enough to punch.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we have a Jewish country, and it also has severe terrorism problems.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

>The worst thing anybody can do is take idiots who say they are nazis or kkk members seriously. That gives them credibility.

Wasn't this what around six million Jews and others in Europe said about the Nazis?

Re: Hobby Lobby

[dbIII]

Maybe read something like Jack London's "The Iron Heel" (free on Project Gutenberg) to see what a lot of people, including some very much on the "right" are worried about. You don't need a swastika to be dangerous.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, bro, if you aren't out there actively looking for people in red hats, pepper spraying them in the face, and maybe destroying their businesses or homes, then you're ENABLING the nazi brownshirts who seek to stamp out all dissent and plunge the world into totalitarian darkness.

(captcha: missile)

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Bearhouse]

Rather off topic, but I heartily disagree. Liars and xenophobes should be called out on their toxic crap otherwise they might get elected president one day.
Oh wait....

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Trailer Trash]

Rather off topic, but I heartily disagree. Liars and xenophobes should be called out on their toxic crap otherwise they might get elected president one day.

A "xenophobe" who's married to a foreigner.

You folks have gone beyond self-parody at this point.

And "liar"? Ever heard "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor"?

Re: Hobby Lobby

[nasch]

You're right, Trump is honest, because somebody else said something that wasn't true.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is it's not they themselves who label themselves as such. It's YOU after you hear a sentence out of their mouth that doesn't exactly reflect every one of your beliefs.

You are intolerant. You try justify this by saying those to whom you're intolerant are "much, much more intolerant to INNOCENT people", but you still don't have tolerance. You won't listen, you won't converse, you won't do anything but advocate a particular set of ideas....without explanation or rationale.

If someone says something you disagree with all you think about is how to escape from them immediately and how to shun them afterwards.

Basically you are forcing an US vs THEM scenario when your habits leave you weak and their habits make them strong. You are clamoring for a fight that is going to end your line.

Re: Hobby Lobby

[Cmdln Daco]

1. In Europe.
2. In 1939.

We have more serious threats to worry about. Nazis and the KKK are historical anachronisms. The people who participate in those 'movements' in 2017 are harmless and/or easily identified and neutralized.

tech is pop culture now

[Anonymous Coward]

so is the super bowl

Re:tech is pop culture now

[Anonymous Coward]

Tech isn't tech anymore. This story proves it. Nerds go home. The jocks have taken over. Coder bros represent!

Re:tech is pop culture now

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's all just blinkenlights to distract the frothing idiot masses. Now WTF is a Koan?

Re:tech is pop culture now

[Cmdln Daco]

The bully stopped picking on me when I broke the handle on my clarinet case hitting him with it.

Jockstraps can... well... whatever weird things they want to do in the locker room is okay with me.

YES!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all.

false advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Arnold Schwarzenegger insinuating WOT is free
Sprint insinuating Verizon still has contracts

Wicca = Satan

[Anonymous Coward]

http://jesus-is-savior.com/Fal...

There is a new book that witches around the world are drooling over. It's title is Witchcraft Out of the Shadows, and it's Author is Leo Ruickbie. The website is www.witchcraftoutoftheshadows.com. In a dark time of apostasy around the world, witchcraft is sadly rearing it's ugly head like never before. With Harry Potter, Sabrina the Witch, the Witches TV series, the Church of Satan, and so many other godless influences on our young people, it's to no surprise that the Devil is gaining ground quickly. Let may say right from the beginning... WITCHCRAFT OF ALL FORMS IS SATANIC! The witches and Wiccans can deny it all they want, but the Bible is the FINAL AUTHORITY, not the witches. The Word of God is eternal, It never changes because God never changes...

"For I am the LORD, I change not..." â"Malachi 3:6

God says in His Word that WITCHCRAFT IS A SIN...

"For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft..." â"1st Samuel 15:23

The same God that condemned witchcraft in the Old Testament still condemns witchcraft today. God loves all people (including witches), but he hates sin. Psalm 97:10 challenges ALL Christians to HATE SIN...

"Ye that love the LORD, hate evil..." â"Psalm 97:10

I hate witchcraft, but I love all people. It is WRONG to hate people. I don't hate anyone, despite what my enemies would like to believe. I DO hate sin because God has commanded me to hate sin. ALL believers should hate sin. I love Jesus Christ and am faithfully obeying the Bible by exposing witchcraft. Wicca is black witchcraft. ALL witchcraft is black because there is no such thing as "white sin." To claim that there is "white witchcraft" is to claim that there is "white sin." There is NO such thing as a little "white lie," all lying is as dark as the blackness of hell. ALL sin is black, dark and evil. I am just addressing the witches on their own terms, since they like to differentiate between "white" and "black" witchcraft. If that is the case, then ALL witchcraft is very black, evil through and through.

There is a frightening trend amongst witches to attempt to repackage (to redefine) their history. This new book, Witchcraft Out of the Shadows, attempts to do just that. Leo Ruickbie tries to discredit Christianity and the Bible with his flawed reasonings. He tries to explain "where witchcraft came from?," and "where it is going?" I have a one word answer for the curious reader for both question: HELL

Ruickbie claims to have done an "in-depth" investigation into history to survey the dark-side of the human psyche and it's bias against witchcraft over the centuries. He goes on to claim that many of today's modern negative ideas concerning witchcraft originate in ancient myths and religions. In short, Ruickbie is saying that the Bible is flawed having it's origins in ancient myths. The entire premise of the modern day witchcraft movement is that the Bible is NOT God's Word. Of course, they are 100% WRONG! The Bible is God's eternal, inspired, infallible, inerrant, preserved Word. As you can clearly see, there is NO common ground between Christians and witches. Christians believe that the Bible is God's inspired Word, and the witches denounce it as myths and superstitions.

What does the Bible say? The first mention of the word "witch" in the Bible was made by Moses in Exodus 22:18. God had instructed Moses to impose the death penalty for anyone proven guilty of committing the sin of witchcraft. Wow! For a sin to be punishable by death, it must have been pretty serious to God. Notice again the Scripture I quoted to you earlier from 1st Samuel 15:23, "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft..." Witchcraft is equal to rebellion! Witchcraft is rebellion against God. The Bible condemns witches and witchcraft, I don't have to.

"And he caused his children to pass through

Re:Wicca = Satan

[moosehooey]

You need a good swift kick in the head, you do...

Re:Wicca = Satan

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like ANY religion, but I especially don't like Wiccanism because it's teaching young people to think uncritically. Astrology and magic spells are a big part of Wiccinism.

Re:Wicca = Satan

[Anonymous Coward]

Kick it with the bitch who comes from Parisian
She know where I get mine from and the season
Now she wanna lick my plum in the evenin'
And fit that tongue tongue d-deep in
I guess that cunt gettin' eaten
I guess that cunt gettin' eaten
I guess that cunt gettin' eaten
I guess that cunt gettin' eaten

Re:Wicca = Satan

[PopeRatzo]

Astrology and magic spells are a big part of Wiccinism.

Astrology and magic spells are a big part of every major religion. I'm serious. Look it up.

Re:Wicca = Satan

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like ANY religion, but I especially don't like Wiccanism because it's teaching young people to think uncritically. Astrology and magic spells are a big part of Wiccinism.

Link?

That sounds like propaganda to me. You can make the same claims about any of the mainstream religions, too. Astrology is also practiced in certain sects of Judaism and Islam as well as many eastern religions.

Re:Wicca = Satan

[BarbaraHudson]

He already had it - that's why the self-evident brain damage.

Re:Wicca = Satan

[BarbaraHudson]

All religions teach people to think uncritically.

Re:Wicca = Satan

[Anonymous Coward]

eric s raymond is wiccin

Re:Wicca = Satan

[Anonymous Coward]

Have faith in the Pussy Grabber and behold His miracle of MAGA.

Re:Wicca = Satan

[Anonymous Coward]

Well -- a big part of every religion until the practitioners are rounded up and massacred in the name of theological purity.

Does someone get to play football?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it even necessary anymore?

Re:Does someone get to play football?

[TWX]

With the fawning over the players so many of the guys at work do, yes, it is necessary.

What I really don't get is fans of out-of-state teams referring to their team as, "we," as if they have some connection with the team other than buying their merchandise and rooting for their success.

Re:Does someone get to play football?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pronoun "we" can refer to a group of people that share any connection or common interest. It is not restricted to geographical proximity. It would probably be a more intelligent question to wonder why they use that word if they are not actually on the team.

Re:Does someone get to play football?

[TWX]

It would probably be a more intelligent question to wonder why they use that word if they are not actually on the team.

That's what I said.

Re:Does someone get to play football?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean, "we" people?

Re:Does someone get to play football?

[hambone142]

I googled how much actual "play time" is involved in a NFL game.

It's 11 minutes.

I see the Superbowl as nothing but a bunch of advertising, some shitty attempts at "entertainment" at half time and an excuse to get a bunch of people together to eat a shitload of food.

It is a good time to do some traveling though as the freeways aren't crowded during the game.

Re:Does someone get to play football?

[snakeplissken]

What I really don't get is fans of out-of-state teams referring to their team as, "we," as if they have some connection with the team other than buying their merchandise and rooting for their success.

as expressed here by mitchell and webb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

snake

Re:Does someone get to play football?

[David_Hart]

I googled how much actual "play time" is involved in a NFL game.

It's 11 minutes.

I see the Superbowl as nothing but a bunch of advertising, some shitty attempts at "entertainment" at half time and an excuse to get a bunch of people together to eat a shitload of food.

It is a good time to do some traveling though as the freeways aren't crowded during the game.

And most video games can be played through in 30 minutes or less... what's your point? that you don't like Football (American Football)? Got it...

While there may be an average of 11 minutes of "play time", there is a lot going on beyond the actual physical play. Strategy, alignment, play calling, etc. takes up a bunch of time on field. For Football fans (American Football for our International friends) this is just as important as the actual physical play. Those who do not enjoy the game will see it as a waste of time.

I do agree that the Ads are over the top for the Superbowl, but that's how the NFL is so successful at generating money.

DRMed?

[Kunedog]

I was thinking more like "impossible to print or save as a jpeg" from the locked-down Surface app, but "You can order prints starting at $4.99 (PS filters and effects available for a small extra fee)!"

smoke and mirrors

[TWX]

The teams and the league are there to make money. As such they'll apply whatever trappings they think will bring more fans and thus more money to the sport.

Right now tech is hot, tech is popular. It doesn't matter why it's hot or popular, if they can find a way to cobble it in for greater profit then they will do so. The game itself has not changed significantly for a very long time, the only tech required has been safety equipment to attempt to reduce injuries.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now tech is hot, tech is popular.

I made my career in tech because I wanted to do the unpopular work. Now tech is popular and my career is finished. Zuck done fucked me up.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because you're old, and nobody wants to hire an old person with outdated skills. Fortunately old people have pushed through age-discrimination and you can sue companies into being forced to hire you.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[TWX]

Huh?

I said tech is popular. I didn't say that tech work is popular. Using tech is what's popular, but only where the use of that tech is easy, where it's a marvel, kind of like previous marvels. Those using it often have no clue why it actually works.

Consider historical examples. Cars are popular. Cars have been around for the masses for about a hundred years now. The average driver doesn't know how an engine or a transmission really works at a fundamental level, they only know that when they step on the accelerator pedal the car moves forward. The telephone is popular. The average telephone user doesn't understand how trunk lines work or the line voltages for talk and ring on the average phone, or how a telephone exchange works, they only care that when they pick up the handset, there's a dial-tone and they can make a call. Television is popular. The average viewer doesn't understand how originally TV was allocated spectrum and individual channels were assigned short ranges of about 7MHz wide, or how color was cobbled-in to a previous black-and-white signal, or what the switchover from analog to digital meant and how it was cobbled in to that ~7MHz wide piece of spectrum. They simply know that when they turn on the TV, there's something to watch.

The tech work to make cars move, to make telephone calls, to make television, is hard, and is subject to change. The use of these technologies does not require a lot of change on the part of the user. Arguably the basic functions for driving cars has been about the same since the invention of the electric starter motor. For landline phones the function hasn't changed since the touch-tone phone was rolled-out in the sixties, and even cell phones mimicked this for a very long time before finally switching over to dial-then-submit model or to using extensive contact lists. TV hasn't really changed from the end-user perspective since the advent of the remote control, other than the mild blip when the subchannel appeared with HDTV.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a career in tech until Trump decided to make it difficult for H1B workers to steal American jobs. Fuck you, Trump. I deserve to work in the motherfucking USA. Americans don't.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes no sense. I haven't changed since high school, and suddenly I'm uncool.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, what will your village do now you won't be sending your paycheck home. You have a right to siphon money from the American Empire because Americans don't deserve their riches. Fuck Trump indeed.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[rtb61]

The game has changed quite significantly. They have lost their main stream media lock in, the creation of the illusion of heroes and heroines. The reality of boring egoistic dumb douche bags, willing to do the same boring crap endlessly, is starting to leak through and the whole hero/heroine bullshit is dying. The era of 'I am not lying, I am acting' when it comes to unsportmens and unsportwomen marketing products is coming to an end. They are desperately trying to stay relevant, in a market, where they can no longer control the message and establish a gestalt that turns dumb idiots playing like children into heroes who sell product, whether consumables (alchohol, cigarettes), or politics or what ever they are trying to sell. They are in desperate to stay relevant mode and the market it shifting to, 'crap it was all marketing bullshit mode, all of it, heroes heroines, great achievement, managed public appearances, just all bullshit'.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[Cmdln Daco]

There are too many kinds of 'tech work' to really generalize on any particular kind.

Most IT work is Data Janitor Drudgery.

Most Technician work is just hands on craftsmanship.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of this is just inspired by weird tech that hasn't really found its place yet. We know drones are useful in some specific applications like film, surveillance and survey but without a killer consumer application you can't sell more than a few hundred thousand units. Most people don't want or need a drone but you can always appeal to the coolness factor and try to catch a few impulsive buyers. They'll regret it in the morning but you don't care by that point.

Also, I bet they're selling drones at the event. Betcha. Lady Gaga is probably in for a cut of the sales.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[TWX]

You lost me at, "gestalt," and completely missed the point I was making.

Football, the actual game played on the field measuring 360' by 160', with a 300' by 160' contested area, has not significantly changed. The act of the offense attempting to advance down the field against the defense attempting to stop them or better, force a turnover, is largely the same since the founding of the NFL. Undoubtedly a few rules have changed over the years and some equipment has been added or improved upon, but someone watching a 1917 collegiate or professional football game would recognize a 2017 collegiate or professional football game.

Everything else, including virtually all of what you've brought up, are just trappings. Those trappings may be important to the marketing of the sport, but none of them are necessary for those 22 players on the field to attempt to advance or halt the advance of the ball. The addition of this electronics technology push is itself just trappings. Any and all of it could go away and you'll still have 22 players out on the field playing their parts.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[dbIII]

Personally I'd rather see Janet Jackson's nipple for half an hour than most of those trappings.

Re: smoke and mirrors

[Corbets]

Did you call for the troll, or are you part of it?

Re:smoke and mirrors

[umghhh]

What about this: 'the trappings are necessary for the sport to exist'?

Re:smoke and mirrors

[apoc.famine]

You know you can, right? I mean, this is something totally within your control to make happen.

Re:smoke and mirrors

[nasch]

The average telephone user doesn't understand how trunk lines work or the line voltages for talk and ring on the average phone, or how a telephone exchange works, they only care that when they pick up the handset, there's a dial-tone and they can make a call.

I wonder how many people under about 18 or 20 even know what a dial tone is. Plenty of them have probably never had a home phone, or at least not when they were old enough to use it. Are dial tones in enough movies and TV that it would be familiar? I'll have to ask my kids.

"Silicon Valley engineer earns more"

[Anonymous Coward]

All this says is social media is even more overvalued than professional sport. That's not a good thing, you shallow greedy fools.

Lifetime Earnings comparison

[Guppy]

All I know is the Bay Area Newsgroup reported that a Silicon Valley engineer ultimately earns more over their lifetime than the average NFL football player.

Reminds me of an article comparing a doctor's lifetime earnings vs a UPS driver. In the analysis, the doctor doesn't pull ahead until about 18 years after high school, due to the long period of schooling and residency, plus debt load.

http://www.er-doctor.com/docto...

Re:Lifetime Earnings comparison

[BarbaraHudson]

Yeah, but they get to retire earlier.

Re:Lifetime Earnings comparison

[ranton]

Reminds me of an article comparing a doctor's lifetime earnings vs a UPS driver. In the analysis, the doctor doesn't pull ahead until about 18 years after high school, due to the long period of schooling and residency, plus debt load.

You make it sound like 18 years after high school is a long time. That is only 35-37 years old, or in other words only a little over a third of the way into your career.

Re:Lifetime Earnings comparison

[swb]

But in the business side of medicine, a lot of doctors buy into medical groups and by the time they're in their 50s they are the senior people in their group culling more profit from the group's practice and working fewer, better hours and then often selling out their share of the practice to someone new.

I have a friend who is an orthodontist and he started that way, and he then expanded the practice being the principal practitioner at a couple of new locations, which includes owning the buildings. He's 55 and I think if he sold his real estate holdings now he'd probably net more money than his future income from just orthodontics. Of course I think he will continue to work and either hold the lease on the real estate or sell the buildings when decides to retire.

As for the NFL/SV comparison, that's kind of silly. The NFL players make all that money in less than 10 years and then quite often leverage their football careers in sales, coaching positions or if they were better than average at money and income, into owning car dealerships or other large businesses where they make money even beyond their NFL earnings.

Of course there a lot of fools that blow it all on partying and large retinues of family and hangers on and wind up penniless.

Re:Lifetime Earnings comparison

[Trailer Trash]

Reminds me of an article comparing a doctor's lifetime earnings vs a UPS driver. In the analysis, the doctor doesn't pull ahead until about 18 years after high school, due to the long period of schooling and residency, plus debt load.

You make it sound like 18 years after high school is a long time. That is only 35-37 years old, or in other words only a little over a third of the way into your career.

On the other hand, those comparisons never add in what would happen if you took the out of pocket money that would be paid to college and put it into an S&P 500 index fund between the ages of 18 and 22. My guess is the doctor wouldn't catch up until age 45 or later. I'm not talking about the med school money (the doctor would literally never catch up if I did), just the out of pocket cash for undergrad.

For those of you not living in the USA

[ukoda]

I was in the USA once when one of these Superbowl things was on so can tell you a wee bit about it. I think it is meant to be the top level of the sport but appears to be only USA based teams. They call the sport football but it is not in any way related to actual football. It appears to be safety focused version of rugby where they are wearing full body armor making the players look more like some mini-mecha from an anime. Not as entertaining as my description might lead you to believe, but this is compensated for by a live concert in the middle of the game and some quite watchable commercials.

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have professional pig-raping in your country? Here in America we skin the pig first and throw the pigskin around, because we're more civilized than you savages.

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

and this year, the game play seems to be sped up some 5-10% giving the players the appearance of being on amphetamines

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

You saw a game you weren't terribly familiar with and didn't really enjoy it or understand it. Thanks for sharing.

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you were grabbing pigs by the pussy. Or was that nasty women. civilized lol....

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[sjritt00]

Why yes, indeed they do. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt20...

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit because the PM was not paid to rape the pig.

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[Notabadguy]

As an American that played Rugby in college, I sympathize - seeing millions of Americans go ballistic over a watered down version of Rugby is sad.

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[ranton]

They call the sport football but it is not in any way related to actual football.

Football includes a family of vaguely similar sports, including Association Football (soccer), Gridiron Football (USA football), and Rugby Football (rugby). All of them can be rightfully called football, even though their rules vary greatly. There is no "actual" football.

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[hambone142]

I have a lot more respect for rugby players than football players.

I'd like to see football players stripped of all of their "protective clothing" instead of being a bunch of pussies.

They may as well just drive bulldozers to get the job done if they want to be "safe".

Rugby players are real men and don't need to wear all of the crap. The sport also doesn't have so much dead time (11 minutes of actual play time in an NFL game).

Re:For those of you not living in the USA

[Obfiscator]

I had always heard that rule and style of play differences allowed American football players to hit harder, thus resulting in a more violent sport.

A little google searching found a 2016 study from the The American Journal of Sports Medicine on injuries in collegiate football and rugby in the US. The authors found, "Overall injury rates were substantially higher in collegiate rugby compared with football. Similarities between sports were observed in the most common injury types (sprains and concussions), locations (lower extremity and head), and mechanisms (direct player contact). Upper extremity injuries were more common in rugby, and the rate of season-ending injuries
was similar between sports." (emphasis mine) So it looks like I was wrong, at least at the university level.

Although rates were similar for concussions despite that American football players wear helmets to protect their head. So perhaps they do hit harder and/or at different angles? Either that or the helmets don't actually protect their heads.

The authors note some studies in the introduction which indicate injury rates in professional football may be substantially higher.

Gaga Drones

[dtmancom]

I WONDERED how they did that opener for the halftime show. I was wondering if I was seeing on-the-fly computer graphics. Drones makes sense.

Re:Gaga Drones

[Anonymous Coward]

It's such a shame the drones didn't revert to original programming and kill Gaga.

Re:Gaga Drones

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about Brady that has gone on the record to admit to criminally cheating with deflated balls that obviously cheated this time since his weak hands were so obliviously able to sink into footballs that no one with his small and weak hands would ever be able to without cheating. He is like Trump that has small hands so he wants Americans to die because of his disability. Brady is the same way. He put a knife through my forehead because his kind is sop racist.

Re:Gaga Drones

[bickerdyke]

The opposite of on-the-fly...

Pre-recorded:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/0...

Superbowl halftime show is now on par with the chinese Olympic Opening Ceremony fireworks, that many people called "cheating"

Super Bowl brought to by baseball's MLBAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Super Bowl brought to you by........baseball (MLBAM). http://www.sportsvideo.org/201...

Let me say two things

[rossdee]

I don't give a shit about football (either American, or soccer)

and WTF is a koan?

Re:Let me say two things

[Anonymous Coward]

Koan = A writer trying to justify their overpriced bachelors degree in English!

Re:Let me say two things

[Nunya666]

and WTF is a koan?

From http://www.dictionary.com/brow...: a nonsensical or paradoxical question to a student for which an answer is demanded, the stress of meditation on the question often being illuminating.

The British definition is a little clearer: (in Zen Buddhism) a problem or riddle that admits no logical solution

Marketing and Pilots

[Anonymous Coward]

The tech companies get a high visibility test client for IoT and related data-analytics products and services. The NFL gets cheap business consulting and technology solutions to support what ever comes out of it. The NFL customers get flashier shows and more involved fan-products. It's a win-win-win.

Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitch Trump's team is being grabbed by the pussy. Go Falcons!!!!

Re:Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump's team came from behind to win when it counted.

Football, the geek's arch enemy in high school?

[Anonymous Coward]

no, there will never be any kind of tech-football marriage

Re:Football, the geek's arch enemy in high school?

[Anonymous Coward]

The marriage of tech and sports happened already and it was a shotgun marriage after the birth of their bastard child Comcast.

Re:Football, the geek's arch enemy in high school?

[Cmdln Daco]

Comcast isn't tech. It's salesmen in mid-priced suits.

Re:Football, the geek's arch enemy in high school?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does a monopoly need salesmen? Next you'll try to claim Comcast isn't an ISP or try to claim ISPs aren't tech sector.

Atlanta is kicking the Patriots' collective butts

[93 Escort Wagon]

Early in the fourth - all is right in the world.

But back on topic: Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLB-AM) has been extremely successful - that probably has the NFL drooling.

Get in the sea

[PopeRatzo]

Area Newsgroup reported that a Silicon Valley engineer ultimately earns more over their lifetime than the average NFL football player.

This is the stupidest thing I've seen on the Internet since 4pm.

The average career length of an NFL player is 3.3 years. The average career length of a Silicon Valley engineer will probably be closer to 40 years. Longer if they "reform" Social Security and add years to the retirement age.

Re:Get in the sea

[Anonymous Coward]

The average career length of a Silicon Valley engineer will probably be closer to 40 years.

"40" is a mighty strange way to write 5. Do you fake your own death at 30 and have plastic surgery to make yourself look 25 again?

Re:Get in the sea

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you washed out after 5 years of work doesn't mean everyone else is incompetent. I work with plenty of older folks who know what's what, and get paid well for it. Stop spending your entire workday on Slashdot and you'll get farther. ;-)

Re:Get in the sea

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because your entire team of older folks hasn't been laid off and outsourced yet doesn't mean you have job security regardless of how competent you think you are.

fluffed numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk about fluffing your numbers.

For the average NFL player, it’s $3 million and for pro hoops players it’s $12 million. Average pro athlete careers range from 3.5 years to 5.6 years.

An engineer’s lifetime earnings potential exceeds $5 million. That’s from working 40 years at an average of $125,418 annually

So you have the possibility to earn 3-12 million for five years work, as compared to 5-13 million for 40 years work. Possiblities are not guarentees. This is finding people with high enough negotiated wages to support your arguement.
Both fields have a limited amount of positions paying the highest amount.
$125,418 per year works out to about $2250 a week. I doubt that salary is going to people fresh out of school. I would quite like to be paid that, and not have to pay student loans to boot.

Re:Atlanta is kicking the Patriots' collective but

[Cmdln Daco]

Game is now in overtime. How will the Patriots cheat their way to a win?

don't destroy your athletes

[Anonymous Coward]

A high rate of attrition is bad for building up talented sports players. American Football is safe enough for the average player to survive high school, college, and 5 to 13 years in the NFL. Now, their brains, or bodies, might be useless after that, but, it doesn't effect gameplay quality.

Almost all are tech companies

[Billly Gates]

Back before it was considered an evil cost center, tech was once used as a tool and process engineering. You need internet, email, spreadsheets, databases, business intelligence, statistics, social media marketing, etc.

The newer companies GET IT. You want to sell more product? Don't do silly commercials. Go to facebook, twitter, and use analytics from these to find out what your customers want and to support fan driven sites. That is just one example.

The NFL gets it! THe dying companies do not and are reactive and view IT as plumbing and only spend money AFTER something fails.

Re:Atlanta is kicking the Patriots' collective but

[93 Escort Wagon]

Well, obviously Russia got involved.

(I kid, I kid...)

a Silicon Valley engineer

[Anonymous Coward]

A Silicon Valley engineer? Which engineer ultimately earns more over their lifetime than the average NFL football player? Slashdot's editors need to go the way to the IMDb message board.

Re:a Silicon Valley engineer

[moeinvt]

Did you know that the average career of an NFL player is only 3.3 years? Crazy, isn't it? For every multi-millon dollar superstar with a long successful career, there are many anonymous athletes who experience a career-ending injury in their first or second season. They must also be counting only what the football player made while playing football.
I can easily believe that the "average" engineer earns more over the course of an entire career.

Apes on steroids

[Anonymous Coward]

Superbowl? Only if you enjoy watching subhuman freaks pumped up on steroids.

Sports? Really?

[LostMyBeaver]

I sometimes watch the superbowl advertisements, but I can't honestly imagine ever being interested in watching a bunch of sweaty guys in spandex hugging on each other and trying to get each other on the ground. There are many websites for this and frankly, I'm glad people into that sort of thing have a place to watch it, but I'd far prefer to sit at a coffee shop and look at the pretty girls as they go by.

As for cheerleaders... holy shit... they all look like rednecks attacked by botox on hair spray.

I think that the Greeks and Romans had the right idea when they created organized sports to keep the stupid people preoccupied with something meaningless.

Massive Pageant but not of technology

[No Longer an AC]

About a week ago I read something about the Super Bowl's "opening night" and I wondered if it was a football championship or a Broadway musical.

How can a football game have an "opening night"?

No doubt it was a big show, but as another poster points out there was only 11 minutes of playing time. Is that true? And the hype about the commercials and the half-time show is possibly even bigger than the action on the field.

I guess the NFL has done some cool things with technology....well, not the NFL but people who partnered with them (e.g. CMU experts helping CBS's 30 robotic cameras to work as one)

It looks like Intel has taken that a few steps further for this year's Super Bowl. I would hope anyway. That was 16 years ago.

But on other tech fronts, wasn't there an article in the last year on /. about the NFL's horrible experiences with their Surfaces? And didn't announcers keep referring to them as iPads?

And dammit, I just watched a brief news clip about the Super Bowl hoping to see some of this amazing new camera technology and the only pictures of the game were still images! I should have known better than to click on a Newsy link. CBS doesn't play well with whatever extensions I have on Chrome and Firefox so I had to pull up IE to watch their report...and watch a Bud Light commercial...And CBS didn't have anything but still images in their news clip either? WTF?

Didn't the game air on CBS? Was the camera technology cool? It seems they're making it difficult to see.

Re:Massive Pageant but not of technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox carried the Superbowl this year.

Re:Massive Pageant but not of technology

[Gilgaron]

All sports are like that to an extent. I think football's success is due to its frequent pauses between plays allowing for extra advertisements (which in turn fund the whole thing) and a mix of strategy and athleticism that translates well to TV. Basketball, for example, can go quite a while without a pause in the action, which is great in some respects, but makes it somewhat less social to watch because you will miss more if you turn away to converse with your friends. Baseball is a sport I enjoy watching in person but can't get into on TV. I think the reason its heyday was in the radio dominant media landscape is because it is easy to describe what is happening. Football is ok described on the radio, but basketball is too visual in my opinion. My opinions will be a little outside the norm, I don't actually enjoy pro-sports much... for some reason that the athletes are so beyond the pale of normal humans in skill makes it less interesting for me than college or minor league.

crossing my fingers

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoping the future brings us closer to Blood Bowl.

Quite the opposite I think

[SuperKendall]

Tech is more popular yes. But that doesn't mean technical workers are any less in demand, because even if more people were actually drawn to tech work than before (are there?) the ones who just do it for the glory either make it hardly past the rigors of learning programming, or if they do perform so poorly on the job that all people who really enjoy technical work look like giants by comparison.

I tried to watch it...

[Anonymous Coward]

But the moment I began seeing advertisments of African-Americans promoting Civil Rights Extremism, OFF went the TV. Who the hell can stand to watch that shit?

Words Mean Things

[Princeofcups]

A haiku is not a poem based on syllables. Karma is not what goes around comes around. And a koan is not a RANDOM FUCKING QUESTION.

America First

[Anonymous Coward]

When the president himself is running around repeating pro-nazi slogans, maybe we ought to take it seriously.

Re:Atlanta is kicking the Patriots' collective but

[Anonymous Coward]

Atlanta would have won if all those illegals hadn't voted for the patriots.

And hire Asian and women!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure NFL won't be same with them!

Yeah I Watched The Super Bowl....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the Patriots won again....

I didn't think the NFL's TV ratings were so bad this season that they had to show a repeat of a Super Bowl just to get people to watch.

And then there was FOX....

I thought I had tuned into watch a Super Bowl, but all I got was an apparent endless stream of commercials. Was a game even played?

Frankly, I don't know what would be more interesting this past Sunday evening, watching this so-called football game or being forced to watch CNN or MSNBC for 4 hours.

Engineer makes more than an NFL player? Not likely

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to comment on the "engineer makes more than an NFL player" claim.

The page in the link shows that an engineer makes more in 40 years than the NFL player makes in 3.5 years. But this ignores the all-critical time aspect.

In reality, if the NFL player made $3 million in 3.5 years while the engineer made $5 million in 40 years, the NFL player would come out WAY ahead. Historically, the stock market has been giving a 7% return on investment annually.

So let's take that $3 million and compound it for the next 35 years to see how it will compare to the engineer who earned $5 million in 40 years:

If the NFL player blew every last penny of interest each year he'd be pulling in over $200k from the interest alone. But if he didn't touch the money and let it compound over those next 36.5 years, he'd have over $34 million. And this is assuming that the NFL player didn't get any job after that to generate additional income.

To make matters worse for the engineer he has to live in the most expensive real estate market in the US to work in the silicon valley area. The retired NFL player could live wherever he wanted, including places where housing is cheap (no need to live in an expensive town if you don't need to make money).