This year’s Super Bowl was held a few days ago. Below are my thoughts on the commercials, halftime show, and the game itself.
The commercials
This year’s ads were definitely “meh.” I’ll spare going over the worst ads; largely, most of this year’s ads focused on AI, relied on knowing who various celebrities are, and/or relied on nostalgia (for decades-old movies, TV shows, ad campaigns, etc.).
The best ad: a CGI Stitch (from the upcoming live-action “Lilo and Stitch” film) running amok on a football field, supposedly “interrupting” the game.
The halftime show
This year’s halftime show featured rapper Kendrick Lamar. As I don’t do the best job of following current music, the only thing I know about Lamar is “that rapper who’s arguing with Drake.” (And the only thing I know about Drake is “that rapper from Canada people online seem to dislike.”)
I did listen on YouTube to a few songs by Lamar (and fellow halftime performer SZA) before the game; I liked SZA’s songs better, probably since I’m not a big rap listener. The halftime show otherwise was OK; Samuel L. Jackson showed up dressed as Uncle Sam.
The game itself
This year’s Super Bowl was a rematch between the same teams from 2023, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. The game itself was more entertaining than I expected. Going in, I assumed it’d be a repeat of previous Super Bowls: yet another win for the Chiefs. Instead, the Eagles ended up all but destroying the Chiefs, beating them 40-22; the game was never close, with the Chiefs only scoring their points late in the game.
I expected Fox (this year’s broadcaster) to cut more often to shots of Taylor Swift and Donald Trump, who were both in attendance. (I tuned in to the game around start time, to avoid seeing Trump during the pre-game show.) I didn’t see Trump at all, while I only saw one shot of Swift. Fox News was plugged multiple times during the game, however.
Tubi
This year, Fox streamed the game live on Tubi, their free ad-supported streaming service. As Fox doesn’t have a paid streaming service (like Paramount+, Max, etc.), they must’ve figured it’d be a way to cover streaming and promote Tubi at the same time. Fox does plan to launch a paid streaming service later this year, but it’ll mainly be a mix of Fox’s shows/sports (or at least the shows they didn’t sell to Disney) and Fox News.
I watched the game on Tubi, which advertised the stream as available in 4K. (I don’t own a 4K TV, so I couldn’t test this for myself.) The stream mostly held up, though it stuttered at several points during the game. As Fox doesn’t own much at this point, most of the self promotion was for a few Fox shows, Fox News, and “Tubi Originals,” the latter apparently a thing.
I do wonder why Fox doesn’t just launch a paid version of Tubi, given it’s popular, and “Tubi without ads” would surely sell well. The main issue would be renegotiating rights for the content (a reason Netflix’s ad-based tier lacks some material), but it seems like it’d be easier than reinventing the (streaming) wheel.
“Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl LII Victory Parade (40173332621)” by Governor Tom Wolf from Harrisburg, PA is licensed under CC BY 2.0. (Flickr / cropped from original)
