Hangover: Super Bowl

So, who won? The N.Y. Giants were ahead after the clock ticked down to zero, making them the Super Bowl Champions, so they must have won, right? While it's true that the Giants won the game, the real winners of this game didn't play a down.

For the first time in history, we were able to watch the game without having to sit in front of a television. This is big....REALLY big! Why? Sports drives innovation, particularly when it comes to football. Think about it....what really spurred the adoption of HD? Did anyone truly care that we could see the nightly news anchors' every pimple, wrinkle, and botox injection site? But, when we could see every stitch of a football as it spun through the air, or every movement of a sick knuckle ball....that's when HD became important! Other innovations such as the DVR and Sling, owe a large bit of their existence to their application to sports.

Photo credit to Jon Brodkin and ARS Technica

This year, the NFL let us watch the game on our laptops, phones, and tablets.
It's about time, but why did it take so long? The reason is simple, the commercials. As everyone is aware, the amount of money advertisers spend for Super Bowl air time is mind-boggling! It is understandable that they would want the NFL to ensure that people were in front of the television to see something that cost them a lot of money. But here is the thing....the same entity that threatens commercial revenue, the internet, has also given everyone a way to relive super bowl commercials over and over. In fact, the last few years saw YouTube set up an entire channel where consumers can view the commercials from the game as well as, get this, RATE the commercials! What better way for advertisers to get feedback!! No doubt, the NFL was able to point to this fact in order to get the advertisers to let the NFL offer the game online.

So, actually, everyone wins. The NFL gets to increase their viewership (because, lets face it, they are struggling), advertisers are sure that their commercials are seen, and the consumers will reap the benefits as more and more sports content is placed online. Granted, there has been a limited increase of sports offerings, but in most cases it has been obscure events like mid-level conference games, Division 2, sub-par matchups, and less popular sports like cricket, that have been available online. Now that the most popular event in the nation has been showed online, which is certain to be followed by a mass of Olympic content this summer, hopefully the web has become a viable place to have our favorite teams and sports play.

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