NewsJanuary 23, 2001
INTERNET GEARS UP FOR SUPER BOWL
Five days and counting until Super Bowl Sunday. Of course, it's not so interesting this year since it involves two East Coast teams: New York and Baltimore. But even if you're not a football fan, you might tune in just to watch the commercials. Super Bowl Sunday has turned into an event of sorts with parties and gatherings from sea to shining sea...
Joni Adams
Five days and counting until Super Bowl Sunday. Of course, it's not so interesting this year since it involves two East Coast teams: New York and Baltimore.
But even if you're not a football fan, you might tune in just to watch the commercials. Super Bowl Sunday has turned into an event of sorts with parties and gatherings from sea to shining sea.
Let's find out more about the Super Bowl.
Beginning tomorrow, SuperBowl.com TV will begin its Webcasts and continue through Saturday. NFL Films TV will Webcast a live half-hour program from the NFL Experience, featuring the NFL's biggest stars from the past and present. The show promises to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look -- from the practices to the parties.
Can you believe that the Super Bowl is televised to a billion people around the world? Who's going to win? Click on the Super Bowl Matchup Breakdown link at the bottom of the page to learn more than you'll probably ever want to know about these two teams.
The site provides statistical recaps of the last five games played according to the criteria you choose. In addition to team stats, you can look at the numbers for individual players.
If you want to find out more about the city of Tampa Bay, Fla., and the group that organized this year's Super Bowl, you can click on their Web site.
One interesting story that comes from the Tampa Tribune was the warning the Giants' players received about late-night partying. Apparently, the players were warned specifically about the troublesome establishments especially those with semi-clad dancers. The players don't want to follow in the footsteps of former Falcons safety Eugene Robinson and Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis -- both of whom became entangled in legal problems during the past two Super Bowls in Miami and Atlanta.
You can learn more about the Raymond James stadium, which will seat 75,000 for the Super Bowl. It also includes a 103-foot pirate ship complete with cannons.
Of those, only 500 pairs of tickets are available to the general public through a random drawing. You can enter the drawing by mail between Feb. 1 and June 1 of each year preceding.
It was also interesting to learn the city of Tampa Bay has enlisted 5,000 volunteers to help with the Super Bowl. That's very impressive.
This marks the third Super Bowl in Tampa the other two were in 1991 and 1984.
CBS will broadcast this year's Super Bowl. They're probably hoping for a repeat of last year's viewership, which was the fifth most watched program in television history and the third most-watched of all Super Bowls. Total viewership? More than 43.6 million homes.
Of course, without the Rams, the viewership can't be that good.
Hopefully the announcers won't gab too much. I know people tuning in just to watch Sting at the pregame. The Backstreet Boys will sing the National Anthem, and the half-time entertainment will be presented by Aerosmith and *NSYNC.
You can read Dave Letterman's NFL Scrapbook, including his Top 10 signs that your team won't be winning Super Bowl XXXV. They're pretty funny. The No. 1 reason? People from Florida are keeping track of the number of points scored. I'm not sure Florida will ever live down that recount business.
You can also read the latest and oddest news surrounding the Super Bowl, such as the fact that a bus carrying the Baltimore Ravens to the airport Monday for their flight to the Super Bowl collided with a police car. No one was hurt.
I hope that's not a bad sign. I like the Ravens. We already lived through the all-New York World Series.
Of course, CBS is just dying to tell us all about the next installment of Survivor -- this time in the Australian Outback. The series debuts right after the Super Bowl.
For "unbiased" coverage of the teams, jump over to their official Web sites.
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On the Ravens site, they're conducting an unscientific poll: By how many points will the Super Bowl be decided? Of the fans voting so far, nearly half said 4-7 points.
You can find news and stats, multimedia and even a fun zone.
There are wallpapers you can download or games you can play. You can test your field goal kicking skills or test your memory against other Raven fans.
Both games require Shockwave. You can also play "Cheerleader Breakout" or "Ravens Slider." Under multimedia, you'll find a video archive. You'll need Real Player to view the videos.
In the Press Box, you'll find lots of statistics here -- dating back to 1998.
You'll need Acrobat Reader to view the stat pages, which is a relatively simple program to download.
Giants.com promises lots of Super Bowl pregame and coverage.
There's an interesting story by Michael Eisen, who writes that the two teams share a laundry list of eerie similarities. For example, the Giants scored 61 points in their two playoff games. The Ravens scored 61 points in their three playoff games. The list of similarities is quite long.
I like this quote: "If these teams were personified, they could pass as identical twin brothers." You can find lots of information about the team here, including multimedia.
To view their video clips, you'll need RealPlayer or Windows Media Player.
There's also a Giants chat room where you can converse with fans.
Of course, if you really hate football, perhaps the next site is what you need Sunday.
You can find out what's hot and what's not on TV, and what's ahead for Sunday to compete against the Super Bowl. I was intrigued by a story about the Pretender, which TNT has revived with a made-for-TV movie due to a campaign launched on the Internet.
When NBC canned The Pretender (1996-2000), lots of the show's frustrated fans logged onto their computers and complained. It caught the attention of TNT, which has a second Pretender movie in the works. Who says the Internet doesn't pack power? You can search for your TV listings by ZIP code. Don't let my kids know that "Babe" and a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie are on at the same time as the Super Bowl.
Actually, I was almost tempted by the fact TNT is showing "Gone With the Wind," one of my all-time favorites.
If you want to learn more about this movie epic, you can visit the site put up for the movie's re-release in 1998.
You can take a virtual tour of the Margaret Mitchell House and Tara, or learn more about the history of the film and the actors.
This movie may be more than 60 years old, but it's still one of the best.
Those Super Bowl commercials better be good.
What's your favorite Super Bowl site? E-mail me at jonia@sehosp.org
See you in Cyberspace.
Joni Adams is the Webmaster at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau, www.southeastmissourihospital.com
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