Watercooler Blog

In case you’ve missed this blog, ESPN, or the Internet in general, the Arizona Cardinals are in the Super Bowl.  That is not a typo.  The Cardinals really did beat the Philadelphia Eagles last weekend to earn their first ever Super Bowl appearance and the good people at NBC couldn’t be more terrified.  I mean no disrespect to the Cardinals.  I’m actually thrilled to see them there because 1) I’m a Cowboys fan and can’t stand the Eagles or Giants, and 2) the Cardinals are genuinely fun bunch of guys to root for.  It should be a very entertaining game that, if you believe the signs, a lot fewer people will watch than last year.  Secondary ticket markets are reporting that sales are off 40% compared to last year due to weak demand.  That may not be the best comparison given that Super Bowl XLII had the undefeated New England Patriots facing off against the big market New York Giants - a match made in ticket sales and TV heaven.

Speaking of TV, NBC cannot be happy with the matchup.  Again, that’s not to say that there is an anti-Cardinals sentiment in big media, but money and ratings talk.  And when they’ve talked in the past, the Cardinals have been nowhere to be seen.  Their struggle with TV audiences and ratings is well documented in a recent New York Times article by Richard Sandomir.  To an extent, it could have been a self-fulfilling prophecy this year as the Cardinals had a good team but were given horrid TV coverage.  Of course, that could be due to the many years of futility leading up to this year - two winning seasons in 20 years - which is enough to make even the most gambler of a producer run for the coverage of the Cowboys, Steelers, or Patriots.

In the end, I’m hoping I’m more pleasantly surprised than Mike Freeman at CBSSports.com who is expecting the Super Bowl to be, in a word, dreadful.  From a FanSection perspective, the Cardinals are really starting to come along even if they will never catch the Steelers when it comes to fan support.  That said, registered users have increased by 1000% while monthly active users have increased by 2900%.  That is incredible growth even if it does smack a little of bandwagon behavior.  So who knows, maybe the Cardinals will continue their shock-the-world behavior and deliver a fantastic Super Bowl performance worthy of ESPN Classic.  And maybe the TV public will seize the opportunity to witness the rebirth of a sports franchise as a great reason to tune in.  We’ll find out on February 1.