Miles's blog

I understand there is a blizzard today in Denver.  I cannot say I am sorry to be missing that.  It was nice and sunny here in New York today.  We have had very little snow this winter.  I expect at some point a major snowstorm is coming, but so far, it has been pretty dry.  I was in New York on Wednesday and the temperature was over 60 degrees.  It was so pleasant to walk around that it made me excited to be here when it warms up.

Much of the talk around New York is about the Giants in the Super Bowl.  The newscasts and newspapers are filled with Giants talk and there is some sense of excitement.  But having watched the Broncos go to four Super Bowls while I was in Denver, what is happening here cannot compare.

Denver’s love of the Broncos is certainly unparalleled in my experience.  Unquestionably, the Broncos own Denver.  Each Super Bowl appearance was a local holiday.  I remember Bronco Fridays in the office when pretty much everyone wore their Bronco shirts.  On Super Bowl Sunday the entire town stopped functioning.  Not only were Bronco games the lead story on the news, they pretty much took over the news.  I read a statistic that when the Broncos recently played the Patriots, 80 percent of the televisions in Denver were tuned to the game.  (The story did not say 80 percent of the televisions turned on at the time, which I assumed it meant, rather than that 80 percent of all televisions were on and watching the Broncos.  Nevertheless, it is an incredible number.)

New York, of course, is a very different environment.  As one of only two cities with two teams (San Francisco is the other) there are a lot of people here who are Jets fans.  And while I don’t think the rivalry between the Jets and Giants is very intense, I doubt Jets fans are universally cheering for their cross-town opponents (although they hate the Patriots, so maybe most of them are).

Also, New York is such a polyglot of people from all over the world.  There are hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who grew up in countries without American football.  They fill the bars to watch World Cup soccer games, but I don’t think the Super Bowl is of tremendous interest, at least not of any rabid kind.

In addition, New York has many, many people, like my daughter, who really are not football fans.  Meg might watch the game, but she is completely disinterested in the build-up.  I doubt she can name a single player on either team.  I expect many New Yorkers are similarly disinterested.

Finally, while Denver seems to me to be completely enamored of professional football, I believe New York at its heart is a baseball town.  I was here during the 2000 World Series when the Mets played the Yankees and it seemed the entire town was talking about it.  Of course, a subway series like that is much more likely to evoke universal appeal in the New York area, but still, I think more New Yorkers love baseball than football.  I could be wrong, but baseball was born in New York, and generations of Gothamites were taken to Yankee Stadium or Ebbets Field or the Polo Grounds, even to Shea Stadium by their dads.  Football is primarily a televised sport, with relatively few people able, or even willing, to attend a game live.  

I have seen almost no Giants shirts as I walk around, and very few signs supporting the team.  The media is invested in the game, but the New York populace, I think, is watching with interest, but not with passion.

(By the way, can you tell me why the Weather Channel has a presence at the Super Bowl? I turned on this morning to get an update on the blizzard in Denver—and actually to internally laugh, I know that is mean—and I was met with the sight of Al Roker and Stephanie Abrams standing outside Lucas Oil Stadium.  The stadium is a dome.  This game is being played indoors.  Even I can predict the weather there.)