Featured Book Talk: Celebrating the Super Bowl. Programs, Profits, Parties
Description
Drawing a global audience of more than 113 million, along with being a de facto American national holiday/phenomenon, Super Bowl—the final championship game of the $14+ billion National Football League (NFL), is one of the most widely celebrated, feasted and feasting events of the year. In the US alone, more avocados (105 million pounds) are consumed and more beer is drunk (325 million gallons) on the single day of Superbowl Sunday. Around the world, this annual sports extravaganza has historical significance relative to its meta-event economics (stakeholders, host cities, advertising, gambling, and media); fandom; ratings; halftime entertainment; the roles of mythic spectacle and religion; American football’s sexist, militaristic language; gender issues such as cheerleaders and sex trafficking; the Puppy Bowl; medical concerns like concussions and violence; plus tailgating and foodie ideas—all along with tidbits about favorite team(s) and player(s). Most of all, this case study easily fits into the notion(s) of cultural identities in sport and society.
Linda K. Fuller (Ph.D., U. Massachusetts), Professor Emerita of Communications at Worcester State University, USA, is the author/(co-) editor of more than 30 books—including Sport, rhetoric, and gender (2006), Sportscasters/Sportscasting (2008), the two-volume Sexual sports rhetoric (2009), The power of global community media (2012), Female Olympians (2016), Female Olympian and Paralympian events (2018), the two-volume Sportswomen’s apparel (USA and global, 2021), Celebrating the Super Bowl: Programs, profits, parties (CGRN, 2023), and the forthcoming Female Olympian and Paralympian athlete activists: Breaking records, glass ceilings, and social codes. The recipient of Fulbright awards to teach in Singapore and to do HIV/AIDS research in Senegal, check out her website: www.LKFullersport.com.
