The Football Game That Changed America. Dennis Denninger.

 

The Football Game That Changed America.    Dennis Denninger.

How the NFL created a national holiday.   

 Author Dennis Denninger asserts that one football game in particular changed the United States of America.    While there is likely truth to this notion, we could argue that America changed the importance, interest and popularity of the nation’s most sought-after sport and its coveted championship game.    In February of 2025, America finished watching the 59^th super bowl where the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs among a record crowd of patrons and television viewers, advertisers, social media content and just about any other connection that helped glorify this event towards a near national holiday.  

Of course it wasn’t always like that.     Denninger, a professor at Syracuse in the Falk School but also a former award-winning sports television producer at ESPN, provides the history of not only the super bowl in its nascent years but also digs deeper into how the NFL evolved into a ready for television sport, entertainment entity within itself.    The author states that the early years of the NFL championship game were considerably less popular and even at risk of being little more than an exhibition for NFL dominance.  However, some things happened in the late 1960’s that gave the game some importance, namely the Joe Namath famous prediction that his New York Jets (an AFL team) would defeat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.     As fate would have it that is exactly what happened, against the odds, augmenting the interest in this game.    

Denninger, a creator the course “The Super Bowl and Society”, purportedly the only college course that focuses on the impact that the Super Bowl has had on American Life, provides many details throughout the book supporting the title’s assertion.     For example, to support former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle’s vision of a warm weather, neutral site and city, the region must contain a stadium that can hold at least 70K fans, has a range of nearby training centers for each participating team, offers nineteen thousand hotel units for visitors and fans and oh, by the way, an outdoor climate that averages at least 50 degrees a day in the winter, or an alternative climate controlled indoor stadium then it could possibly hold a super bowl event, provided it passes other bidding requirements.      

Of course, the Superbowl now goes beyond just providing a football championship.    This is now an event that commands global attention with billions of dollars impacted each year.   In fact, the author goes into depths of how much money this one-day event likely generates throughout a calendar year.    According to Denniger’s careful calculations, the Superbowl’s total economic impact ($48 billion) is greater than the Gross Domestic Product of a few select nations such as Iceland and Bolivia.  

We like that the author takes a stab at the future of the game in the drive to Super Bowl 100 chapter.    Denninger asserts that although there has been some decline in high school football participation over the past decade due to greater awareness of head injury and its impact on future health, there are still too many attractions and benefits to the sport that keep young men interested and engaged.    With that in mind, the book asserts that the NFL has taken measures to help make the game safer for players now and will be even better by the year 2066—when super bowl 100 is scheduled to be played.    Denninger cites impact resistant equipment with embedded digital sensors and transmitters supposedly providing players far greater protection than they have available today.   He even asserts how the NFL is studying nature—the movement of animals in particular – as a way to learn more about enduring powerful forces exhibited against one another.    

While the Super Bowl event may be considered by some to be the fourth of July in winter (as the book interjects several times), it is not officially an American Holiday, at least not yet.   According to Deninger, the NFL would NOT likely be in favor of this occasion.    It seems as though the league would lose considerable revenue (reportedly more than 1 billion dollars) if they lost the naming rights to the Super Bowl as a national holiday.   This revelation may come as a shock, surprise and disappointment to those that advocate for a day off from work duties.           

Although the book feels and looks bit like a text it contains many interesting nuggets about the sport, American culture and the event itself.    Nevertheless, readers should be mindful that this is not really a hard-core book about football despite what the title might suggest.     In fact, once the reader gets past the first sixty pages, the content becomes much more about media tendencies and trends along with American cultural habits and tastes.

In a manageable two hundred and forty pages, the book was surprisingly easier to read than expected despite plenty of sophisticated data and layers.       Just as one does NOT have to be a football fan these days to fully appreciate the NFL championship, the same is easily echoed for those attempting this book.     It is evident upon reading this manuscript that the game of football remains America’s most favorite and/or popular sport therefore, given the ubiquitous fandom and cultural values of America, we will continue to impact this annual event for many years to come.     

 

·       You might like to read this book if you are an NFL football fan.

·       You might like to read this book if you enjoy reading about NFL history.

·       You might like to read this book if you seek information about the Super Bowl.

·       You might like to read this book if you are interested in sports impacting US popular culture.  

Read more about the author on X.   https://x.com/DDeninger