Super bowl brownout.

AuthorJedick, Peter
PositionSPORTS SCENE

AS SUPER BOWL weekend approaches, pardon me if I choose not to celebrate. Football used to be my favorite sport. The Cleveland Browns were my favorite team. Then, in 1996, team owner Art Modell moved the storied franchise to Baltimore (where they became the Ravens) when the Ohio city fathers would not replace "the mistake by the lake," Depression-era built Municipal Stadium. It was like the whole city of Cleveland was being served with divorce papers. We have not been on speaking terms since. The National Football League did me wrong, and no matter how hot the product, I refuse to make any more support payments.

Besides, I have soured on the whole Super Bowl extravaganza anyway--and not because of the Ravens success since abandoning the shores of Lake Erie. Football's premier contest was not meant to be played at a warm-weather neutral site where the average fan no longer can watch the big game in person. It was not always that way. When I was a boy, in the pre-Super Bowl era, I studied the sports page every Monday morning, following the exploits of fullback Jim Brown and quarterback Frank Ryan. Back then the Browns, whose roots were in the old All-America Football Conference (the team is named after its first coach, Paul Brown), were among the NFL elite, and I dreamed of attending one of their games.

So, in December 1964, when I was 15 years old, I put six dollars cash--an Abe Lincoln and a George Washington--into an envelope. It was money I had earned shoveling the snow out of my neighbors' driveways. I sent it to the Cleveland Browns and, lo and behold, they sent me back a bleacher seat to the NFL Championship game against the Baltimore Colts.

How many driveways would a kid have to shovel today to buy a Super Bowl ticket--plus airline tickets and a hotel room? The only ones who can afford Super Bowl ducats nowadays are movie stars, CEOs, and lottery winners. We now have millionaires in the stands watching millionaires on the field--talk about income inequality. That is a hot topic with many of our presidential candidates. So, why aren't they out protesting on Super Bowl Sunday? Maybe because they are sitting in the expensive suites watching the game with the rest of the one-percenters.

Younger fans might not believe it, but there was a time when the NFL Championship game was played on the home field of one of the teams vying for the crown. In 1964, we could not care less about the cold and the wind off Lake Erie. No one even imagined a...

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