Should the Super Bowl become a national holiday?

Every year, most of you will seemingly sit down with family and friends to watch arguably the biggest event of the year. No, it’s not the season finale of “Glee” or “American Idol.” It’s usually the Super Bowl, taking place every first Sunday in February. 

According to the Nielsen ratings, which are released a few days after each event is aired the Super Bowl is the most viewed television event. Ever. Since 2004, the Nielsen ratings for the Super Bowl have grown each year, setting a record every single time. 

The highest rated Super Bowl, according to the Nielsen ratings, is Super Bowl XLVI between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots with 111.3 million viewers. 

Over the last eight years, more than 97 million viewers, on average, have tuned into the Super Bowl, good for a Nielsen rating of 42.85. Along with the last two Super Bowls, the only other television events to exceed 100 million viewers are the 1983 series finale of “M.A.S.H.” and the 2010 Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts.

With this absurd amount of people tuning into the same channel, causing a nationwide celebration, some would argue that the Super Bowl should be treated as a national holiday.  Trying to get a feel for what my fellow students at IUP thought, I set out to see what they had to say. 

James Hill (junior, exercise science) felt that the Super Bowl should never become a traditional holiday. 

“I don’t think the Super Bowl should be a national holiday,” Hill said. “It’s just a sporting event.

 “If sporting events were to become a national holiday, then wouldn’t the World Series have become a national holiday a long time ago?”

He makes a fair point. If sporting events were to be viewed as a national holiday, logically, America’s national pastime of baseball should be the first to receive its own holiday, right?

For others, the Super Bowl should have its own holiday…sort of. 

Dave Phelan (senior, accounting) feels that the day after the Super Bowl should be recognized as a holiday…at least for other reasons.

“I think the day after the Super Bowl should become a holiday,” Phelan said. “It could be used as a sort of recovery day. All businesses and schools should close.”

Quite an interesting perspective, especially coming from an IUP student. 

Former IUP student Nick Adams added quite a spin of his own.

“Holidays used to be viewed as a religious thing or national pride,” Adams said. “Now, they have all been taken over by economic endorsements.

 “So, if making the Super Bowl a national holiday is to make our central government money, then yeah, go for it.”

Talking to students around campus allowed me to take an unbiased approach to this dilemma. For me, I think that the Super Bowl should not be viewed as a “national holiday.” Instead, it should be viewed for what it is […] a national “celebration.” Super Bowl Sunday is a day to eat great food, hang around with friends and family and watch the two best teams in America’s most popular sport battle it out for 60 minutes to determine who the best team is for that season.