Life stops for ultimate timeout: Super Bowl

Any second now, the entire known universe will grind to a halt; planetary orbits and the diffusion of gamma rays will be affected, as will the space-time continuum.

Stand clear. It’s Super Bowl Sunday.

There really is a football game in there somewhere. Really. According to some experts, a football may be involved.

Guttural human noises and primitive behaviors should be expected. Tribal instincts will come into play, along with ritual food and distinctive language patterns. Unusual messages will be shared, oaths repeated. There will be hollering. In the aftermath, large men will sit in a semicircle to divine the meaning of it all by grunting and pointing at hieroglyphics.

A billion TV viewers in 225 countries are expected to witness this momentous event on Earth alone. Of that billion, 999,999,999 of them will be praying Mick Jagger doesn’t have a wardrobe malfunction at halftime.

There is no word yet about the intergalactic audience, though Nielsen is working on it.

And now, behold, Super Bowl XL — as in 40. Four-oh. Oh. Oh. This is a daunting cultural moment, indeed.

Pre-game programming — this involving large men in expensive suits grunting and pointing at hieroglyphics — began, well, wasn’t it sometimes around 1914? ABC Sports and ESPN will offer more than 100 hours of Super Bowl fare for a game that will last, technically, an hour.

Is there room for any more stats, rosters, match-ups, scouting reports, information, disinformation, factoids, trivia, little-known facts, dismal theories, dream teams, game-day hints or textbook examples of quarterback paranoia and fan obsession?

What? John Madden is not going to share his theory of relativity with us? Well, heck.

And what about that new report that Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck has rearranged his sock drawer? What about that? We demand a play-by-play, with split screen, moving arrows, color highlights, timer and instant replay to determine which socks Mr. Hasselbeck rearranged, and in what order.

Surely the Super Bowl audiences in deep space and on passing comets would appreciate this insight into Earth culture.

About that culture. Super Bowl Sunday has become the catchall for everything that has ever fallen — or been jettisoned — from all the other holidays, including Halloween and Arbor Day. It has become all things to all people.

It’s Christmas II, say electronics retailers, who will have sold 14 million big-screen TVs in the days immediately preceding today’s game, according to the National Retail Federation. The organization also noted last week that fans have spent $100 million on official Super Bowl XL merchandise — 3,400 products licensed by the Pittsburgh Steelers, 1,400 by the Seattle Seahawks.

Commercials during the game may cost $80,000 a second, but fans will wager a half-billion dollars today, according to Sportsbook, an online wagering group that tracks the industry. This year, fans also can bet on the commercials, speculating on which spot will win the annual Ad Meter poll, which has measured public popularity of the messages for the past 18 years.

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