Below The Beltway

Today’s New York Times points out the extent the Super Bowl has evolved to an extravaganza that is out of reach for the average football fan:

PHOENIX — Come Sunday at 2 p.m., Ryan Seacrest will grab his microphone, put on a smile and step onto the red carpet.

Before long, his friends will be there, too, alighting from limousines and grinning in the glare of television lights. Seacrest, the host of the Fox television show “American Idol,” will probably banter good naturedly with the usual array of movie stars, reality-show regulars and socialites.

The scene on Sunday, of course, will not be a prelude to the Golden Globes or the Academy Awards. For the first time in N.F.L. history, Fox’s Super Bowl coverage will begin with a red-carpet show that seems more at home in Hollywood than as a lead-in to a game celebrated for its sweaty, bone-crunching displays of brute force.

All through the fall and into the playoffs, football is the domain of ordinary people. Watching the Sunday game with a cold beer in hand is a ritual celebrated by factory workers, middle managers and lawyers alike, a release after a long week of work.

So how is it that a sport with such populist roots has as its climax the Super Bowl, a weeklong extravaganza that is now the latest stop on the celebrity circuit? Even at their face value of $700 and $900, tickets are so out of reach of most fans that the Super Bowl has become one giant luxury suite, dominated not so much by die-hard Patriots and Giants fans as by corporate executives, team employees, players’ families and celebrities.

“We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that this is an event for the average fan,” said Peter Roby, the athletic director of Northeastern University and the former director of the university’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society. “The average football fan will be at home with their friends, at a sports bar, huddled around a big-screen TV.”

Which is perfectly fine, of course, but one wonders if the NFL is really thinking right when the price their premier event out of the reach of the fans they’re trying to appeal to.