Ron's Commentary

BY RON BARR

I covered my first Super Bowl forty years ago.  It was Super Bowl Four in New Orleans between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings.  As it turned out, it would be the Chiefs only NFL Championship to date and the first of four Vikings Super Bowl losses. 

As I think back on my first Super Bowl, I’m amazed how big the game has gotten.  The Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans was the only media hotel.  It could hold everyone covering the game, plus NFL officials.  The working media room was the size of a large conference room.  There was an open bar and you could make all the free long distance phone calls you wanted.  After the first three Super Bowls had been played in Los Angeles, Miami and Miami, this was the first of many times the game would be played in New Orleans.  It was centrally located in the country, making it easier for the media who wanted to to come cover the game.  In 1970 there was no ESPN and little if any foreign media cared or covered the game.  An additional draw was New Orleans is one of the great “party” towns.  There’s Bourbon Street, southern charm, oyster bars and Hurricane drinks.  The later guaranteed to blow you away after a few sips.  Since the game was being played on January 11th, the southern location of New Orleans lent itself to the hope the game would continue its limited tradition of being played in good, moderately warm winter weather, making it a favorable experience for the media, fans and players alike.

Since the media covering the game numbered around three hundred, interviewing the players and coaches during Super Bowl week was casual and laid back.  Today, the media interview sessions are covered by more than 4,000 “media types” and it’s like throwing fresh meat to the lions.  We’d ask questions about the game.  Today, someone from MTV might ask a player, “If you could be a tree, what tree would they be?”  By the way, that’s a real question recently asked a player at Media Day. 

The big social event of Super Bowl Four was the Commissioner’s Party.  It was an “invitation only” affair.  I remember how more than one NFL staff member asked if I would come and how many tickets would I like.  During the course of the week they approached me several times to make sure I was coming.  They wanted to make sure that Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s shindig didn’t turn into a bust.  It was hard to compete against Bourbon Street and the scantily clad girls swinging out of windows in the French Quarter.  Let’s see, Pete Rozelle or near naked women?  I think you can see why the NFL was afraid the Commissioner’s party might be a snoozer.

If you buy a face value ticket to Super Bowl 44 it’ll cost you as much a $1,000 dollars.  Again, the National Football League wanted to be sure they wouldn’t be embarrassed and to have a sellout so they allowed me to buy as many tickets as I wanted at $25 dollars a ticket.  That was face value too.  Super Bowl Four had an attendance of 80,562 and gross receipts of $3,817,872.69.  This Sunday’s Super Bowl will have attendance revenue of more than 60 million dollars.  That’s just attendance revenue.

Super Bowl Four was played at Tulane Stadium on the campus of Tulane University.  It wasn’t until Super Bowl 12 in 1978 between the Cowboys and the Broncos that the game would be played in the Super Dome.  Tulane Stadium had none of today’s modern stadium luxuries.  I remember the press box being small and pedestrian.  It couldn’t hold even the limited number of media covering the game, so the overflow media (mostly radio and TV) were in an auxiliary media section in the end zone in the upper deck.  Not particularly nice for what turned out to be a rainy day.

The game was a blowout. The AFL squared the Super Bowl at two games apiece with the NFL, building a 16-0 halftime lead behind Len Dawson's superb quarterbacking and a powerful defense.  The Kansas City defense limited Minnesota's strong rushing game to 67 yards and had three interceptions and two fumble recoveries.  The final score: Chiefs 23 Vikings 7.  The significant part of the win was the old AFL has won the last two Super Bowls and now could easily claim parity with the NFL.

My most lasting memory of the game came afterwards.  Deep in the bowels of Tulane stadium were the locker rooms.  Unlike today’s Super Bowl post game, press conference type interviews, we were allowed to mosey into the locker room and interview the players in a smelly, sweaty, but relaxed atmosphere.  After I had interviewed the winning Chiefs players, I went looking for coach Hank Stram.  Being a young, aggressive sportscaster, I was determined to find and get the winning coach as well.  As evening darkened an already dark locker room, I found Stram by himself finishing his shower.  Always amenable to the media, Stram gave this young sportscaster a post game interview while dripping wet and standing with a towel around his ample body.  I left the locker room feeling proud of myself for getting the interview and with a searing memory of a wet, nearly naked, winning Super Bowl Four coach.

After covering thirty-three Super Bowls, I haven’t covered one in person since Super Bowl 35 in 2001 in Tampa. 9-11 changed everything and I knew my comfort, enjoyment and my ability to do my job at the Super Bowl would never be the same.  As it turned out I was right.  Super Bowl 36 in New Orleans and the game became an armed camp because of the fear that such a high profile, media and symbolic event would be a major opportunity for would be terrorists to make a statement again. 

From a media standpoint, the Super Bowl game and week experience has changed.  It gets bigger and bigger, as well as more corporate each year.  That’s not necessarily bad, it’s more a reflection of how big pro football is to the American culture.  During the last couple of years I covered the game, I came to enjoy more seeing all my media friends who also gathered to cover the game.  It was a homecoming.  A chance to talk about those fun and great moments of Super Bowls past.  A time to reflect and smile about what has become an American custom-Super Bowl Sunday.   

I’m Ron Barr.

Ron Barr is an Emmy award winning writer and the host of the nationally and internationally syndicated sports talk show, Sports Byline USA.