I’m not an expert on football, but there are probably a ton of reasons why it’s so appealing to Americans. One might be the combination of power and strength that is seen as representative of the ideal American male. Another, which I’ve written about, is the violence involved in the game.

The effect of that appeal is quantifiable: An estimated 100 million people will watch the Super Bowl. Yes, 100 million is the number that’s thrown around every year at this time, but think about that for a minute. That’s about one in three Americans who will share this event simultaneously. With media fragmented over different platforms, channels, stations and websites, it’s remarkable that so many Americans share this same experience at the same time.

It’s not just the Super Bowl that’s popular. Americans have been watching football throughout the season, too. This was the first year that every primetime football game won its time slot. And it’s not just men who are watching football. Women make up about a third of NFL viewers and Sunday Night Football on NBC was the third highest rated show of the season for women 18-49 years old.

There are probably more reasons. Scheduling probably helps: It’s easier to get an individual to watch the 16 regular season football games that are played on Sundays, than to get that same person to watch the dozens of basketball or baseball games that occur during the workweek. But it’s more than just scheduling that keeps Americans coming back to football.

What do you think? Why is football so popular in America? Are you going to watch the Super Bowl tonight? Why?

See also: Mind-Boggling

The controversy over what ads CBS has decided to show and what they rejected is important, though. Those decisions over what an expected 90 million people will see says a lot about CBS’s and the NFL’s points of view. It also says a lot about what they think the 90 million viewers want to see.

The network rejected ads from ManCrunch, a gay dating website, and the web domain and hosting firm GoDaddy, whose ads have been rejected from previous Super Bowl broadcasts. CBS has agreed, though, to air a pro-life ad from conservative group Focus on the Family featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. There have been sexy ads that have aired during previous Super Bowls, including some from GoDaddy, and there will surely be some this year. There’s very little flesh in either the ManCrunch or GoDaddy ads, though. This seems to be more about sexuality than straight-up sex.

In the ManCrunch ad, two guy’s guys are on a couch watching a football game. Their hands touch over a bowl of potato chips, they share a glance and then they start making out. It’s nothing racier than something you might see on a late night sketch comedy (and apparently it’s already been done there). Here’s the ad:

In the GoDaddy ad, you have a gruff looking footballer who retires, comes out of the closet after leaving football, is flamboyantly gay, and starts a lingerie line using GoDaddy’s services:

See a pattern?

Two NFL-lovers who, while watching the game, realize they themselves want to be lovers. In the other ad, an ex-football player leaves the game and comes out of the closet.

Dan Neil says in the Los Angeles Times that there could be something going on here.

The subtext in both [commercials] is that football itself is, well, kind of gay.

…American football strikes me as a pretty homoerotic spectacle, beginning with the hypertrophic masculinity of the male form in tight pants and huge shoulder pads and ending with the most undignified gesture in all of sports, the hands-between-the-cheeks snap of the ball. Hike, indeed…The pats on the fanny, the showering together, the endlessly rolling around in the dirt. All things considered, I think figure skating is more butch…If I were one of football’s guardians, I might be a little touchy about it. Perhaps that is at the root of the ads’ dismissal.

Maybe. If Neil’s supposition is correct and the subtext (intentional or not) of both commercials is that football is “kind of gay,” no one had to make a big deal about it. CBS or the NFL could’ve just shrugged, laughed it off, or ignored it, but still aired the ad. Instead, CBS pulled it. So, was someone worried about the NFL being offended? Did someone worry about viewers being offended? CBS puts out generic statements when ads are rejected which read something something like the ad is “not within the broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday.” So, we don’t know.

Let’s get to the pro-life ad. It hasn’t been released yet, but it reportedly has Tebow’s mother talking about when she was sick while pregnant in the Philippines. She was told she should terminate the pregnancy, but she decided to keep the baby. Tim was born and grew-up to be a Heisman Trophy winner. The ad reportedly ends with “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

Is that going to play with a Super Bowl audience? How’s it going to fit with the violent – um, action movie trailers, sports cars and buxom women selling beer? Will the ad fit in with the game itself that has 250-300lb men slamming into each other at top speed?

It’s one of the strange things about America. Violence, on some level, is ok. Most sex, is not. On it’s face, it seems antithetical that a violent, macho game would have an ad that’s supposed to “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

The powers that be – not just those at CBS and the NFL, but also those in Washington – think the Super Bowl is an event that every American family should be able to enjoy. Remember how everyone flipped-out over the Jackson/Timberlake Wardrobe Malfunction in 2004?

Celebrate Football. Celebrate Family.

When 90 million people are watching, celebrating anything other than violence, in movies or on the field, or heterosexual sex, within marriage for the sole purpose of making babies, is unacceptable.

Neil also says in his piece, “The [ManCrunch] ad’s real transgression is to imply that football-loving straight men, the sort who high-five after touchdowns, might under the right circumstances act out sexually with another man.” Someone saying that gay sex is possible by the very men who are watching the Super Bowl is out of the question. Making that implication to almost 1/3 of the American population would be pretty ballsy.

This whole thing reminds me of something Bill Maher said a few years ago about how Americans who are homophobic really don’t have an issue with lesbian sex. They have a problem with gay male sex. “In America, when a man puts something in another man, it had better be a bullet.”

Violence is ok for family time. Straight sex is ok, too. Sex between two men is a no-no.

What do you think?

Are CBS and/or the NFL too conservative? Are they being anti-gay?

Is CBS being careful because of the Jackson/Timberlake Wardrobe Malfunction?

Does CBS have to be ideologically fair or neutral when choosing the ads that run on it’s air?

Leave a comment below.

UPDATE: I saw the Tebow/Focus On The Family commercial. With the exception of the “Celebrate Life” tagline at the end, it wasn’t overtly pro-life. I’m not sure what the controversy was for. It would have been easy to release the ad before the game to show how benign it was. It makes me wonder if the ad wasn’t revealed so it could be hyped. By doing that, everyone would be talking about the abortion issue and the ad itself. And since so many people know about the controversy, there wouldn’t be a need to say anything explicitly pro-life. It’s implied. Or did the controversy make CBS decide to have Focus On The Family pull back on the more blatantly pro-life rhetoric?

Thoughts?

But football is a violent sport that can cause great physical injury to players. That was proven again when Miami Dolphins quarterback Pat White collided with Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Ike Taylor on Sunday. Though he appeared motionless at first, he was finally talking and moving his arms and legs by the time he was taken off the field. (White was seen at in the Dolphins locker room on Monday and is reported to have suffered a “likely concussion.”)

The other quarterbacks in the game were having a rough time, too. White, a rookie quarterback, replaced starting quarterback Chad Henne who was out with an eye injury due to a hit in the first half of the game. Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been knocked around in the last few years, too. He’s had four concussions since 2006. Pardon the pun, but it’s mind-boggling that so many injuries, particularly head injuries, are tolerated in football.

Some doctors are taking notice, though. Hard hits to the head are being linked to depression and dementia later in life. A “60 Minutes” report sited a study commissioned by the NFL showing that football players are 19 times more likely than the general public to develop dementia, Alzheimer’s or other memory problems before they turn 50. The report also looks at the incidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in former football players. CTE is a degenerative brain disease that causes dementia. It can only be diagnosed after death when the brain can be dissected. CTE is triggered by brain trauma early in life, but can slowly and quietly progress until dementia and other problem develop decades later. See the “60 Minutes” story here:

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The NFL is in the process of deciding if any safety changes should be made to helmets and other aspects of the game. Regardless of those changes, football will still be a violent game. There will still be 200 to 300-lb. men hitting each other at top speed. Players will twist limbs, break bones and get knocked out. Occasionally a player will suffer a serious injury. At this point, though, players and fans accept those injuries as a part of the sport.

That acceptance is interesting. Children are allowed – encouraged! – to participate in football. Little kids idolize the professional players of this violent game. It’s also seen as a “way out” of poverty, as illustrated in The Blind Side. And achieving NFL stardom – which means being able to avoid some big hits and withstand others – is a measure of success.

But does that success have a price? I really don’t have anything against football. I haven’t followed pro football in years, but I generally tune in for the Super Bowl. I just find this remarkable because it’s another example of the types and levels of violence and injury Americans will tolerate. Thousands of people die every year in the U.S. in auto accidents and from firearms, but heads would explode all over the country if there were serious limits to cars and guns.

American football can never get away from its violent and injurious roots. Only a few rules could change before it ceases to become “football” as we know it. The fans don’t seem to want it to change, anyway. Pressure from them is probably the only thing (except a law) that would significantly change the game.

Until then, the hits will keep coming.