This just in: Carolina wins outright!
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HOUSTON ? So that's that. Game over. Watch the Vegas line move. Carolina is going to win the Super Bowl and the Patriots are going to have no answer for Stephen Davis.
At least, that is according to the NFL GameDay 2004 "Game Before The Game." For the last eight years ? in a twist of brilliant public relations ? the people at 989 Sports and PlayStation 2 have paid one player on each Super Bowl team to square off in the video game. All eight years the video game's winner has gone on to win the Super Bowl.
There are a million ways to predict the winner of the big game, but you can't be more accurate than this one.
On Wednesday, in the swank, brand new Icon Hotel in downtown Houston, the Panthers Steve Smith beat the Patriots Troy Brown 29-21 with Pat O'Brien and Deion Sanders calling the action in front of about 50 television cameras.
"My game plan was to run the ball," said Smith, a receiver. As a result Davis went for 217 yards and four TDs on just 19 carries.
Brown, who won two years ago tipping everyone off to the eventual Patriots upset of the Rams, wouldn't concede anything on Sunday. "We can't let a video game decide the outcome of the game."
In terms of absurd staged media events, this is about as good as it gets. The Super Bowl attracts 3,200 members of the media and about 10,000 public relation types trying to find a way to get their clients, most of which have nothing to do with football, on television, the Internet or in print.
Supposedly, everyone reading this on Yahoo! Sports will be influenced to go out and buy NFL GameDay 2004 just because of this column.
So all over town there are these sorts of "media opportunities," everything from the righteous ? the "Habitat for Humanity Super Bowl Blitz Build" ? to the ridiculous ? the "Breathe Right Super Bowl Snore-Off."
Because of a coincidence that keeps on happening ? the video game champ wins on Super Sunday ? the 989 Sports guys are riding high right now. The reality is the only reason Carolina won was because Smith is better at video games.
"I'm no good at it," said Brown. "I play a little in the offseason, but during (the season) I don't touch it."
But with such a great track record, who could resist covering this? The lobby of the hotel was so jammed I swear I had more room in the womb. There was almost a fistfight between reporters trying to get at Smith. Security came over but the smart PR guys made sure no one was thrown out until they got their interview.
You had all the national "fun sports shows" such as Cold Pizza and the Best Damn Sports Show Period. Then there were local TV crews from three markets (Boston, Charlotte, Houston) who simply can't live without a one-on-one with their guy.
You even had Bonnie Bernstein, who plays a real journalist during the day with CBS, playing a fake journalist at night for the "989 Sports Network." Which, of course, doesn't really exist.
And you wonder why America has lost faith in the media.
Fortunately there was an open bar, which generally is taboo for journalists when covering a game. But what if the game is just a video game? This was such a philosophically challenging question that we figured we needed to knock a couple back while contemplating it.
Meanwhile we concluded:
*That Smith and Brown were much more interested in talking to Leeann Tweeden than anyone else.
*That the most comical part of the evening was not the relentless one-liners from the Deion Sanders, but when Pat O'Brien came out wearing a black Kangol cap, apparently unaware that he is too old to pull it off.
*That we are incredibly jealous that we haven't figured out a way to swing a highly paid side job as a fake columnist for the 989 Sports Daily News.
*That when all was said and done, the good folks at the Bragman, Nyman & Cafarelli Public Relations & Marketing Co. of Beverly Hills, Calif. just made their clients a bunch of money. Or at least will bill them as such.
=============================================
HOUSTON ? So that's that. Game over. Watch the Vegas line move. Carolina is going to win the Super Bowl and the Patriots are going to have no answer for Stephen Davis.
At least, that is according to the NFL GameDay 2004 "Game Before The Game." For the last eight years ? in a twist of brilliant public relations ? the people at 989 Sports and PlayStation 2 have paid one player on each Super Bowl team to square off in the video game. All eight years the video game's winner has gone on to win the Super Bowl.
There are a million ways to predict the winner of the big game, but you can't be more accurate than this one.
On Wednesday, in the swank, brand new Icon Hotel in downtown Houston, the Panthers Steve Smith beat the Patriots Troy Brown 29-21 with Pat O'Brien and Deion Sanders calling the action in front of about 50 television cameras.
"My game plan was to run the ball," said Smith, a receiver. As a result Davis went for 217 yards and four TDs on just 19 carries.
Brown, who won two years ago tipping everyone off to the eventual Patriots upset of the Rams, wouldn't concede anything on Sunday. "We can't let a video game decide the outcome of the game."
In terms of absurd staged media events, this is about as good as it gets. The Super Bowl attracts 3,200 members of the media and about 10,000 public relation types trying to find a way to get their clients, most of which have nothing to do with football, on television, the Internet or in print.
Supposedly, everyone reading this on Yahoo! Sports will be influenced to go out and buy NFL GameDay 2004 just because of this column.
So all over town there are these sorts of "media opportunities," everything from the righteous ? the "Habitat for Humanity Super Bowl Blitz Build" ? to the ridiculous ? the "Breathe Right Super Bowl Snore-Off."
Because of a coincidence that keeps on happening ? the video game champ wins on Super Sunday ? the 989 Sports guys are riding high right now. The reality is the only reason Carolina won was because Smith is better at video games.
"I'm no good at it," said Brown. "I play a little in the offseason, but during (the season) I don't touch it."
But with such a great track record, who could resist covering this? The lobby of the hotel was so jammed I swear I had more room in the womb. There was almost a fistfight between reporters trying to get at Smith. Security came over but the smart PR guys made sure no one was thrown out until they got their interview.
You had all the national "fun sports shows" such as Cold Pizza and the Best Damn Sports Show Period. Then there were local TV crews from three markets (Boston, Charlotte, Houston) who simply can't live without a one-on-one with their guy.
You even had Bonnie Bernstein, who plays a real journalist during the day with CBS, playing a fake journalist at night for the "989 Sports Network." Which, of course, doesn't really exist.
And you wonder why America has lost faith in the media.
Fortunately there was an open bar, which generally is taboo for journalists when covering a game. But what if the game is just a video game? This was such a philosophically challenging question that we figured we needed to knock a couple back while contemplating it.
Meanwhile we concluded:
*That Smith and Brown were much more interested in talking to Leeann Tweeden than anyone else.
*That the most comical part of the evening was not the relentless one-liners from the Deion Sanders, but when Pat O'Brien came out wearing a black Kangol cap, apparently unaware that he is too old to pull it off.
*That we are incredibly jealous that we haven't figured out a way to swing a highly paid side job as a fake columnist for the 989 Sports Daily News.
*That when all was said and done, the good folks at the Bragman, Nyman & Cafarelli Public Relations & Marketing Co. of Beverly Hills, Calif. just made their clients a bunch of money. Or at least will bill them as such.
