Nick Hickman
The decorations are up and the festivities are well in the works, for this Sunday, our Nation’s baby turns fifty.
Her roots can be traced back to the beautiful union between the AFL and the NFL in 1966. What soon came to be known as the Super Bowl was born out of a desire to crown a single champion between two unaffiliated leagues both competing for the spotlight.
Now, she owns an unofficial annual holiday at the beginning of every February. She is unmatched and untouchable. She is achievement personified, but is just as prosperous as she is cultural. In only fifty years time, she has infiltrated America’s bloodstream, pulsing and ripping through our veins as often as the air we breath.
Admit it, we’re hooked. We’re all addicted. Last year, a record 114.4 million people tuned in to watch Brady and the Patriots capture Super Bowl XLIX. There are approximately 111.1 million people living in Spain and the U.K. combined.
Aside from Super Bowl Sunday, only Thanksgiving can boast a higher statistical consumption of food.
The Super Bowl of two seasons ago between the Denver Broncos—who will compete again this year—and the Seattle Seahawks drew a record $119 million bet in Las Vegas casinos. It’s a sport played and adored by only one country in the world, but as American’s, we’re obsessed.
And part of the absurdity is that we’re all obsessed for different reasons. Sure, it’s likely that the large majority of viewers will watch for the sheer competition of the game, but many will be enticed by the halftime show and even Grandma and great-aunt Alice will tune in just to watch the commercials.
Usually we pay for clever tools to help us avoid commercials, but on Super Bowl Sunday, advertising brands will be competing nearly as hard as the athletes to capture your attention.
Though who can fault them? The rationale is simple. Say, for example, that just 5% of all viewers are motivated by an advertisement, spurring them to vote with their dollar. The resulting translation is an additional 5,720,000 customers to the responsible company.
Consequently, advertising companies will be willing to pay substantially for the privileged platform that is the Super Bowl. Thirty seconds during last year’s game sold for a record $4.5 million. According to Business Insider, that number has since grown 11% to a new average of $5 million per for this years game.
Money surrounds the Super Bowl in every corner and every aspect. Last year’s contest commanded more than $330 million in advertising revenue. This year, tens of thousands of passionate fans will pack Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, a venue that cost $1.3 billion to build.
Coldplay will headline this year’s Halftime Show after being selected as one of three finalists for last year’s game. Wall Street Journal reported that—along with Katy Perry and Rihanna—the three candidates were initially asked to pay the NFL for their performance in Super Bowl XLIX.
The Super Bowl is our baby and our addiction, and this year, both will turn fifty. It’s a small milestone in the scope of historical significance, though it’s a progression that shows no signs of slowing down.
Super Bowl Fifty will have its seats packed and its commercials rolling. It’ll have a remarkable halftime performance with brilliant effects and aesthetics, all this can be expected.
And too, you should expect the same next year, and the year after that. The NFL doesn’t need a headline like a fiftieth-anniversary to command our attention on Super Bowl Sunday.
In fact, it’s likely that they don’t even need to make any additional improvements or changes to the event at all. Barring nuclear annihilation, the NFL will be gifted next year with another energetic audience of hundreds of millions of fans.
As long as the money keeps coming, the fans will continue to be provided with a product that stimulates the deepest competitive trigger in all of us. And as long as the NFL’s product is in place, our cherished addiction will never cease.
Cover Photo Credit: Kathy Drasky/Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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In Hong Kong, Young Demosistō Activists “Greet” Chinese Official In Tense Encounter
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the People’s National Congress, Zhang Dejiang spent three days in Hong Kong, between May 17th and May 19th.
Zhang is a member of the Chinese Politburo (the central governing organization of the CCP and therefore the country), and chief official in affairs related to both Macau and Hong Kong.
Zhang was met with some resistance from democracy advocates, including the youth led organization Demosistō.
Activists took actions to voice their displeasure with Zhang, such as displaying large banners with pro democratic messages.
Large scale protests were largely foiled by the impressive security measures taken, which ranged from utilizing divers and scores of police, to confiscating yellow towels and umbrellas; symbols of the 2014 Occupy Movement that gripped Hong Kong.
Read More: Here’s Why This Hong Kong College Student Scares The Shit Out Of The Chinese Government
The most dramatic of these protests was a premeditated “ambush” of Zhang’s convoy outside his hotel.
Several Demosistō members took part in the attempt, standing on the side of the highway or in the median. The police response was swift.
#NathanLawKwunChung@demosisto was pressed down to ground and others were oppressed by police during protest#HongKong pic.twitter.com/ku2fkMRtWq
— Joshua Wong Chi-fung (@joshuawongcf) May 17, 2016
The activists were detained for a short while, reportedly receiving further abuse, as shown below.
They brought Wong (who earlier told me they were trying to stage ‘HK’s Tank Man’) to the ground after this pic.twitter.com/TRSlJDUXH8
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) May 19, 2016
Though all the activists were released today, the trouble seems to have not ended in relation to this incident.
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Demosistō’s Facebook page reports that five activists related to this display had their residences raided by police.
Zhang has been described as a rising star of the CCP by the Brookings Institute, having studied at Kim Il-Sung University, and been integral in Chinese policy towards that country in the early 1990s.
During Zhang’s visit, he made claims that the CCP was not attempting to subvert Hong Kong’s unique identity, or the principle of “one country, two systems”.
Despite these reassurances to the group of banquet invitees, security officials do not seem to think these arguments are compelling to a significant number of Hong Kongers, due to the significant police presence, and the gluing of bricks to the sidewalk to prevent their use as improvised weapons.
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RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: 羅冠聰 Nathan Law/ Facebook Video (Screengrab)
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Miss Puerto Rico Suspended Indefinitely For Anti-Muslim Comments
Looks like Miss Puerto Rico winner Destiny Vélez’s comments against Muslims have caught up with her as she has been indefinitely suspended from her role by the island’s official Miss America organization. Just last Thursday, Veléz engaged on a Twitter dialogue attacking Muslims and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore after he shared a photo of him standing… Read More
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Kim Badawi: The Stories Behind The Lens
With every click of his camera, Kim Badawi captures the untold stories of the human experience.
Because of a series of tweets, his role as the artful observer was reversed, thrusting him into the media spotlight and unearthing all that is to be admired about the photojournalist.
Badawi was recently traveling from Brazil to Miami to be reunited with his family and friends for the holidays. Upon entering Miami International Airport, he was detained for 10 hours without being allowed to contact his partner who was awaiting his release to board another flight.
Confused and distraught, he was forced to justify his personal contacts, emails, photos and whatsapp messages dating back to 10 years ago. He articulated the officers lacked sensitivity and reason during the investigation.
TSA officers were asked numerous times by Badawi if he needed to contact a lawyer, but they insisted that he would not be with them much longer.
After the officers discovered he was of Arab decent, they began to probe Badawi, an American citizen, about his religious practices.
“Me and my partner have suffered nightmares of being in an airport after the whole ordeal,” Badawi told Rise News. “The next day I woke up hoping that none of the things that occurred had actually happened.”
Read More: American Photojournalist Interrogated For 10 Hours In Miami Airport Because He Was Of Arab Descent
Though Badawi was unlawfully detained in the United States, he has a long history of telling narratives of those searching for freedom through his photographs.
He stumbled into photojournalism while staying with his grandparents in Egypt where coincidentally the Tahrir uprising was gaining force.
Badawi was already a well-known international photographer at the time but had little experience in journalism. His phone started to ring with calls begging for photographs on the frontlines as Egyptians revolted for a new and just government
“During the revolution, the people, especially the younger generation, really felt like anything was possible,” Badawi said.
LOOK: The Egyptian revolution through the lens of Kim Badawi
By timing and chance, Badawi was catapulted into the world of photojournalism.
He jokes that his career has evolved through stories adventitiously unfolding once he arrives in a new country.
Recently Badawi has been developing a photography project focusing on Syrian refugees in Brazil.
The globetrotting photographer captures the sensitivity of each moment as the refugees enter and adapt to their new home. He describes the clash of two worlds as the refugees struggle with the relaxed and youthful country of Brazil that is in juxtaposition to the conservative and religious state of Syria.
Through his project, he also realized a troubling truth about the younger generation of Syria.
“They reminisce about places and people as if they were much older than they are,” Badawi said.
As Badawi tells it, for the refugees he has met, cafes, stores, and even homes that held sentimental meaning are now but distant memories of what was. Now they have found refuge in an unfamiliar country, left to pick of the pieces of their fragmented lives.
Badawi said that he understands that Syria’s past and the refugees themselves have been misrepresented in today’s media. He is hopeful that through his photography he can educate the masses through honest portrayals of what it looks and feels like to be a refugee.
Badawi may have found media attention through his unfortunate experience at the Miami airport but the real headlining story lies with how this photographer is impacting the perception of the Middle East.
Through outlets such as CNN, Le Monde, and The Wall Street Journal, Badawi has reintroduced viewers to the high intensity situations that flood the media through portraits of humans attempting to live normal lives amongst the chaos and conflict.
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