In a time of downsizing, NFL gets bigger and bigger

INDIANAPOLIS – Tyler Sash and his New York Giants teammates happily bounded from a Lucas Oil Stadium tunnel toward their Super Bowl Media Day obligations Tuesday afternoon, mere cogs in a mammoth machine.

The rookie from Iowa was soon swallowed in a cluster of humanity, 1 of 53 players dealing with about 2,000 media types, including some who actually cover sports.

They were observed by 7,200 fans who paid $25 to sit in Lucas Oil Stadium for the distinct pleasure of watching ballplayers get interviewed – with a barrier to keep the fans from actually trying to participate in the event.

I did the math. That's $180,000. Which doesn't cover one rookie's salary, but was still pretty nice pocket change for the league for a couple hours' work.

When NBC football analyst Cris Collinsworth played for the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl in 1982, Media Day consisted of reporters interviewing players at tables in a hotel ballroom.

“(Coach) Forrest Gregg, I swear he said this before the whole team,” Collinsworth said. “He goes ‘You're gonna be asked this stuff every day. Every one of you will run out of stuff to say about halfway through the first day's session. Except Collinsworth.' ”

The NFL was extraordinarily popular in 1982. What it is now defies description.

Sash (I'll have a column about him in the next couple days) was at a New York Knicks game last week and sat next to actor Cuba Gooding Jr. Because he plays for the in-vogue Giants, a rookie special-teams player from Oskaloosa got as much applause from the crowd as the actor who played manic wide receiver Rod Tidwell in “Jerry Maguire.”

You can see the Super Bowl's big-ness in the distance as you approach Indy's city center. The 37-story J.W. Marriott Hotel, the Super Bowl's media center, has a humongous image of the Vince Lombardi Trophy on one side of the building.

As the saying goes, you can't miss it.

Tuesday, I got the chance to listen to sportscaster Bob Costas at an event featuring NBC's on-air talent for its Super Bowl telecast Sunday. Costas has basically seen it all and reported on it all in the last three decades of sports.

And still, the NFL's hold over this nation dumbfounds him.

“It's not only the number one property in sports,” Costas said, “but you could make the argument it's the number one property on a consistent basis in all of television.

“Certainly, the Super Bowl is the single-most watched event in all of American television. Cumulatively, the Olympics are, as a mini-series. But as a single event, it's the Super Bowl. No network wants to be without it.”

Thursday night, NBC will telecast a two-hour “Costas Tonight” billed as a town hall meeting on the state of the NFL. What other league or sport could be a discussion topic for two hours of prime-time programming on a major network?

Nothing is too much when it comes to pro football.

“I was watching the NFL Network yesterday and my friend (studio host) Rich Eisen had to voice-over for 45 minutes the Giants disembarking from their plane.

“ ‘Ah, here's (defensive tackle Osi) Umenyiora. He's taken two steps, and now a third, and pretty soon he'll be at the bottom of the jetway, and he'll be on the tarmac. It appears he's wearing a camel overcoat.'

“It's all Super Bowl buildup, 24/7. That's what it is, and all you can do is go with it. No one can turn it around, no one can change it. Just go with it with a somewhat-bemused attitude about it and a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek look at it.”

But most NFL fans aren't bemused or tongue-in-cheek. Hundreds of fans wore Patriots jerseys to the New England portion of Media Day Tuesday. To watch their heroes talk to people, and from a distance.

That Florida primary deal got some attention Tuesday night. But the nerve center of America this week is Indianapolis.