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?

Re:Wicca = Satan

[moosehooey]

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

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[apoc.famine]

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

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

[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.

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.

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: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

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: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.

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: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: 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

[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: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.

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.