Summer of Sports Special: The Big One, First Hand

BY DC CUEVA 

■ linktr.ee/dc408dxtr

As we embark on the next decade of DCBLOG, in our new generation we are broadening our focus to covering more of the other big passions of this blogger beyond our traditional focus on all things Inside MTV Reality. That includes our frequent posts on the sports world, which we plan to put into overdrive during this year's Summer Olympics and other events taking place this year... and that includes this following post that's been years in the making -- and fitting enough for what this blogger is going through as a Bay Area kid is looking forward to what's to come in around six hours from now.

Soon enough it will be the biggest sports event in the United States, as all of us are counting down the final hours to kickoff of Super Bowl LVIII. There, a dream matchup and a rematch four years in the making will go down when the Chiefs and 49ers will clash once again, this time in this blogger's happy place of Las Vegas. The first time they met came four years ago in Super Bowl LIV, San Francisco's apparent sixth title was snatched away in an epic comeback as Patrick Mahomes claimed the first of his two rings as Kansas City claimed their first title in fifty years -- the first in what would become a gradual power shift towards the next generation of rising star quarterbacks in the league... and his opposition was once "Mr. Irrelevant" -- Brock Purdy was drafted last in the 2022 NFL Draft, also held in Vegas.

   On the occasion of Super Bowl 50 eight years ago -- held in 2016 in Santa Clara, DCBLOG looked at the week of preparation an NFL team goes through before game day... which certainly isn't the case when it comes to the two weeks' buildup to Super Sunday and all of its assorted events leading up to it. We also looked at the long, great marriage of football and television, one that's far and away the most consumed piece of real estate in the broadcast universe. And we even delved into that time where The Challenge made its way to the big game when a Real World alum appeared in a Super Bowl commercial a couple years back. And now, we have a story that's been years in the making even before this rematch.

Pics 1 & 2 Courtesy: USA Today

There will be upwards of over 300,000 people who are coming to Vegas for Super Bowl week festivities that began with the teams arriving one week before the game last week on February 4th and continue all the way to game day Sunday, February 11th. It's even more so the case now when one of the player's girlfriends is the biggest pop star in the whole entire universe who is flying in from the first stop on her 2024 tour in Asia... and the possibility looms large that the Taylor Swift effect and her relationship with Travis Kelce will escalate this year's game into the most-watched program in American television history -- one that's further cemented the NFL's powerful position in sports, media and entertainment.

   However, there will only be some 70,000 people who will have the honor of possessing tickets to Vegas' biggest sports event on this Super Sunday. It will be played in a stadium that didn't even exist a decade ago when no one thought that the town could support a major pro sports franchise, let alone multiple among a slew of major events all perpetuated by an act of the high court to make betting on sports more accessible to fans on these shores. You can add Super Bowl LVIII to a Formula 1 Grand Prix, a Stanley Cup, back-to-back WNBA titles and a pending move of a baseball team to the stature Southern Nevada has gained in the sports world after sports betting became legal in the U.S.

   But while this one here got to experience what it's like to walk within walking distance of a Levi's Stadium that hosted Super Bowl 50 in 2016, it is nowhere in comparison near getting to experience, first-hand, the biggest sports event held in this country. That is, until this one found on social media through his fan connections with MTV's The Challenge one of those lucky people to have had possessed tickets to a Super Bowl that doubles as the sports fan's equivalent to a Willie Wonka chocolate factory pass. And he can tell all of experiencing a Super Bowl first-hand... and one that had a GOAT and a pop queen written all around his weekend in the Central Arizonan desert.

DC ExtraTime: The Challenge Takes Over a Super Bowl Commercial

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB/TK

   ESTIMATED READING TIME: 18 MINS.

In over a week from now, the focus for many fans of the MTV Reality world will be fixated on the first offering in 2022 of the fifth major pro sport of The Challenge. But once matters settled on Season 2 of All-Stars back in January, this blogger who loves his MTV shows took a break from covering them on here to follow another of his biggest passions: sports - and the two biggest events of them all... and it's one of the reasons why I've not been posting as much on this DCBLOG site in these first five months.

February gave me reason to join everyone else in the sports world and be both a fan and a viewer in enjoying the nineteen days of the Winter Olympics... and if you saw my Twitter feed during that eventful fortnight in Beijing, then you know how much of an Olympic super fanatic I am as I do any MTV show. But along with seeing Champs vs. Pros competitors Lindsay Jacobellis, Gus Kenworthy and Louie Vito, as well as Chloe Kim, Shaun White and Team USA, one other thing took place in the sports universe in the middle of the Games in a past and future host city an ocean away.

A year ago, the National Football League chose to take advantage of the massive popularity of America's favorite sport by adding a seventeenth regular season game to its schedule. As a result, the 2021 NFL campaign was expanded by one week to eighteen weeks of regular season play, a three-week preseason beforehand, and a thirteen-act play in January & February that was perhaps the most dramatic series of playoff games in league history. It also pushed back the season's last game, Super Bowl LVI, by a week to Sunday. February 13th -- the middle Sunday of the XXIV Winter Olympiad... and it made for what the network of both those events, NBC, to call it a "Once in a Lifetime" Super Gold Sunday.

And while we were caught up in the Los Angeles Rams' dramatic championship win as they nipped the Cincinnati Bengals by a late touchdown in their spectacular home of SoFi Stadium — plus hip-hop's finest hour in its biggest stars headlining a legendary halftime show and before the postgame bombshell of the ladies figure skating fiasco, there was an appearance by one who once appeared on a few seasons of The Challenge and got her start as part of a renowned Real World class. That person also just so happens to most notably be the ex-girlfriend of one of the All-Star competitors competing next month, as she took part in of the most unique aspects to every Super Sunday.

DC on Sports: Crazy Like A Fox

A Follow-Up to: Inside Football on TV
BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

This weekend, the sports world will turn its attention to Super Bowl LIV when it takes place Sunday evening in Miami as it hosts the NFL's championship game for the 11th time. The National Football League's 100th season will culminate with the Kansas City Chiefs facing the San Francisco 49ers for its league championship, and a marquee quarterback matchup between Patrick Mahomes and Jimmy Garapalo. But the traditional hoopla that surrounds the biggest event in American sports has been somewhat subdued this time around, as it takes place a week after the tragic helicopter crash that prematurely took the life of NBA legend Kobe Bryant.
   Broadcasting and producing the Super Bowl is the pinnacle for those who work in sports television in the world's largest media market and sports superpower. It is, by far, the most watched single day of the entire year in American television in terms of TV ratings and the number of viewers watching, as it brings together this country's favorite sport with stellar entertainment headlined by the halftime show, the always fascinating commercials that air during the game that go for millions of dollars for just a :30 spot, and so much more. And this year, the responsibility of that falls in the hands of the FOX network, televising this event for the ninth time in the history of the modern-day fourth broadcast network, whose stature in the media world comes because of a game-changing move.

@DC408DXTR

Three decades ago, FOX first made waves in the football and television worlds when they decided to do something outrageous: counter-program the 1992 Super Bowl halftime show with a live episode of its revolutionary sketch comedy series In Living Color. It stole viewers and headlines from an old-fashioned halftime show celebrating winter sports ahead of that year's Winter Olympics airing on CBS, and paved the way for the mini concerts that are now standard for every Super Bowl since then, starting the next year with Michael Jackson, and this year seeing Jennifer Lopez and Shakira share center stage in the heart of the hub of America's Hispanic community.
   The next year, FOX's parent company, overseas tycoon Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, ignited a power shift in television sports when they outbid CBS to take the rights it held for almost 40 years to the National Football Conference. As it has many of the franchises that have been in the NFL for decades and which are based in thirteen of the top 15 present-day TV markets, it is more prestigious than its American Conference counterparts. And the news of FOX putting CBS on the sidelines by their $1 billion wager sent shockwaves around the media world as it put the network that brought Bart Simpson to prominence on the map, and led to a number of affiliates of the Eye network to jump ship and join the fledgling network that, until then, was catered to a much younger audience.

When FOX Sports unveiled its plans for its inaugural season of NFL coverage in 1994 - the league's 75th anniversary season, it distributed a press guide to the media to outline the way it would televise the games. There, they promised to change the game in how fans got to see and hear their favorite sport, and it helped to change the way football was televised and whose innovations are now taken for granted a quarter of a century later.
   The letter to the media that opened that booklet (pictured above with the hat of the network's present NFL logo - and give credit to me if you use it), written by Murdoch, Fox Television chairman Chase Carey and sports division president David Hill read the following:

"The NFL is both sport and religion to millions of Americans who plan their weekends around watching and cheering their favorite teams and players. Broadcasting the NFL has become a sport and religion to us at FOX. Pulling together the talent, executives, technical personnel and staff to put forth an exceptional product, which our predecessor honed over 38 years, has truly been a Herculean task. In football terms, one might compare it to seven months of two-a-day training camp sessions in Texas' July heat.

   "We will be holding ourselves to our own criteria of excellence. Our belief is that we'll be become the benchmark to which others are compared. That's the challenge we've given ourselves, and the standard for which we strive. Same Game...New Attitude!"

DC Big Game 50: Live at Super Bowl 50

A DCBLOG Sports Special

BY DC CUEVA                           

> @DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

Last week, we saw a game that was poorly played and saw the likely last hurrah for the great Peyton Manning. But watching the game itself paled in comparison to one of the biggest moments I've ever had as a longtime sports fan for 25 years. It was three days before Super Bowl 50 that I had the great pleasure of stepping foot on the very grounds that hosted the golden anniversary occasion of America's biggest sports event and an unofficial national holiday.
   Ask anyone what it's like of being in a big sports event, and they'll tell you it's the biggest and most surreal experience you'll ever have as a sports fan. And it doesn't have to be at the actual event itself...just being at any event that's associated with the game itself will bring that unique experience to those who don't have tickets. I've been to so many sports events since I went to a Warriors game as a 10-year-old in 1993 - spanning the four major sports. I've also mingled in Las Vegas at a boxing mega-fight when Manny Pacquiao faced Miguel Cotto during my 26th birthday weekend, where the atmosphere is just as energized. As a strong Bay Area sports fan, I've celebrated many championships for the local teams since the '80s Niners dynasty. But nothing matches having experienced being on site during Super Bowl week at the very stadium that hosted the Big Game at Levi's Stadium.

DC Big Game 50: DC Inside - Football on Television

A DCBLOG Sports Special
BY DC CUEVA

> @DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

As the countdown to Super Bowl 50 moves into high gear by way of the Broncos and the Panthers arriving last week and them in full prep mode for Sunday, the preparations are in overdrive for the biggest event in American sports. But it's a more meaningful Super Sunday as usual, as it is the Golden Anniversary of the blue ribbon event of the National Football League, being held in the heart of the golden state of California.
   DCBLOG continues its special DC Sports series, DC Big Game 50, as we focus on the NFL and America's national passion of football. And after we looked at the preparations a team goes through in the week leading up to game day, today we turn to a different kind of prep. As Denver and Charlotte map out their plans, another team has been preparing for Super Bowl 50 for the past week. And that would be of the team at CBS Sports, who have been given the assignment of airing this year's landmark game, just as they did for the first one back in 1967 in Los Angeles.

   It seems as if this game was invented in 1869 with the premise that it would be the perfect sport for it to be shown on a medium that was invented several decades later and be the perfect sport for television in just about every aspect. But what goes into bringing that excitement into your home?  It's the subject of this first edition of DC INSIDE, which will take the opportunity on occasion to go inside some of the various aspects of the entertainment and sports you and I love.

   After the jump, DCBLOG takes you Inside Football on Television: the Perfect Combo.

DC Big Game 50: The Week to Gameday

A DCBLOG Sports Special

BY DC CUEVA                           

> @DC408dxtr / @DC408dxnow

The preparations are in full swing for the Biggest Sunday Night of All and the biggest annual sports & pop culture event in the world's largest media market & global superpower. Super Bowl 50 will be the biggest occasion ever for the National Football League and this year promises to be something special. It's the biggest sports event to be held in a market that's become the region of champions in this second decade of the millennium, and it comes at a time where it's clear which sport is top dog. And fitting enough for this golden anniversary, the San Francisco Bay Area will host this landmark Super Bowl in the golden state of California.

   As we're halfway through its gradual countdown of the twelve teams that made it into the NFL Playoffs down to the two who'll be in the Bay Area come Sunday, February 7, DCBLOG will be presenting a special series of posts covering America's most-popular sport and certain aspects of it as the showcase sports event in this country celebrates the big 5-O, along with college football having just crowned its national champion in Alabama once again. This is the first of two special sports series on DCBLOG this year as later this summer, we'll have posts related to the year's biggest event, the Rio Olympics, alongside our other posts here. And obviously, I'm looking forward to both events.

Today, as NFL Conference Championship Sunday looms, we kick off our DC Big Game 50 series with a look at a week in the life of teams prepping for a typical week leading up to an NFL game. Of course, the build-up to the Super Bowl - or any playoff game for that matter - is something else, but for a regular season game it's still a big deal. From Monday-morning quarterbacking to Sunday game day itself, we'll offer a look into the week-long preparations for teams readying to go into the battle. It's a week full of practices, meetings and the like that gives you a sense that the game you watch is more than one played on the weekend... it's the culmination of all the preparation for 60 minutes of game time spread out over three hours in a day's worth of football.

   After the jump break, DCBLOG will look at the various aspects of a week in the life of a pro football team preparing for Sunday and a battle on the gridiron. This is The Week to Gameday.