XLII.  Is that forty-two?  I thought we’d already played to at least forty-five.  Maybe after they reach Super Bowl fifty, they start counting backwards. 

With most news coverage about the primaries and economic stimulus package, I only heard about this year’s Super Bowl because a radio station reported about some guy who wanted to declare Super Bowl Monday a national holiday.  Ha!  As if pro sports weren’t bad enough economically.  Here’s a paper about how cities subsidize professional sports believing they will help bolster their economy.  In fact there are detrimental effects of professional sports on their host cities.  One of their examples is about decreased work productivity, which is exactly what the radio station was talking about with the Super Bowl holiday guy.  There are other examples but essentially, pro sports makes a small group of people very wealthy and costs the city a lot of money on infrastructure, not to mention congestion, pollution and all those negative externalities.  To be fair, it does offer a common interest for people to talk about, which can help build rapport and all that warm fuzzy stuff. 

Moving on though… here’s some basic info for all the sports dummies like me.  According to the official site of the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots are playing against the New York Giants this coming Sunday, February 3rd in Phoenix Arizona.  The Patriots are the favored team, which would make the Giants the underdogs.  Which state is the Patriots from anyway?  New England?  Isn’t that a bunch of states?