Football is Family.
That’s the mantra that the NFL paid multi millions of dollars to imprint in our brain during the Super Bowl on Sunday night. Claiming that the winning Super Bowl cities experience an uptick in births exactly nine months after the big game, the NFL put together a cast of purported “Super Bowl Babies” to don choir robes and sing interesting new lyrics to “Kiss from a Rose” with superstar singer Seal.
Since this was Super Bowl 50, I presume the NFL went to great lengths to track down some now 49-year-old Green Bay Packer babies who kicked off the phenomenon in 1967, as well as 1970s- era Pittsburgh babies, who, the NFL suggests, might have been conceived behind a Steel Curtain. Still no Super “Bawler” could compete with the cute 2014 Seahawks tots, who didn’t sing and sway with the rest of the choir, but mostly stared wide-eyed at the camera and burst into adorable tears when they had had enough.
With all this football-inspired, baby-making hype, it made me wonder what happened here in Pittsburgh in 2009, the last time the Steelers won the Super Bowl. If the NFL is correct and football fans traditionally “whoop it up” after their team wins the Super Bowl, then by my calculation, Magee Women’s Hospital should have been inundated with birthing mothers nine months later, on or about Sunday, November 8, 2009.
By the same token, I would also expect that when the Steelers went to the big game again two years later and lost to the Green Bay Packers in 2011, the doctors and nurses at Magee might have had a slow night 40 gestational weeks later.
I’m not interested in checking birth records because I’m still a little stuck on how the NFL put together their cast of Super “Bawlers” for the commercial. Did they check birth records in every winning city for the last 49 years to find people born or who gave birth within a range of suspected dates? And what kind of survey questions would they have asked to narrow down the field?
Question #1: Are you or your parents football fans?
Question #2: Did you or your parents watch the Super Bowl on (insert date)?
Question #3: After your team won, can you confirm that you or your parents should be fined for “excessive celebration?”
Since the Pittsburgh Steelers have won more Super Bowls than any other team, it occurs to me that I may be living in the midst of the most Super Bowl-inspired population in the world.
As much as the NFL wants us to embrace this Football is Family motto, it gives me the willies. If anyone thinks that the government, Google and Facebook are invading our privacy, do we have to worry about the NFL, too?
That won’t stop Steelers fans who will undoubtedly “bleed Black and Gold” to see the team win Super Bowl ring number seven. That’s great. But fans, the next time your team win the Super Bowl, just be careful how you celebrate.
The NFL might be watching.
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photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/42328960@N00/3259632887″>At the parade</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>