“Does Beethoven Have a Bubble Gum Car.”- Lucy Van Pelt
Had some solid best practices to post today, but we were really struck by the Giants win and the impact it has had on people in general in the jaded, cold and dark corners of the Big Apple, that we wanted to just take one more poke at why this “sports thing” matters first hand. This morning I was on the train into Penn Station, and in addition to the usual commuters who never look up and are stuck in blackberries and newspapers and ipods, were a series of couples…mostly sixtyish men with their younger sons…all dressed in Giants garb, heading into the city. One in particular in front of me was an older man with an NYPD hat on, sitting next to his thirtysomething sone in his Big Blue sweatshirt…and in the silence he said something that was really striking…and cut through the commericals, the great ratings, the bandwagons, the endless stories…he said it was the first time he was going near Ground Zero, and he wanted to stop by afterwards…since 9/11. He was very happy that he had a reason to return now and “talk to his friends.. Knowing the impact that 9/11 had in Northern Jersey and Rockland County, especially with the amount of NYPD and NYFD living in the area, I am pretty sure I knew who his “friends” were. Very few writers had drawn the connection between this parade (although Mike Lupica captured part of it today in the News), the first since the 2000 Yankees, through the Canyon of Heroes, and that now sacred ground just blocks away.Michael Kayhad a great monologue yesterday about why this game mattered, and that father and son today…along with the countless others we saw going on the subway together…are why we do this and why sport.matters. It takes us away from that day to day and as Michael said yesterday “Makes fifty year old men 12 year old kids again, and unites the gaps that we create in our social status.. That's why Sunday night was important. It gives us part of the compass from which we can mark time, and sometimes we really forget about how powerful that is. Now I realize it wasn’t the same powerful effect outside of this area…but that magic of sports…whether it is the high school basketball game, the Little League title or watching the big game, does still have the ability to link generations and give us the ability to mark the times of our lives.
Now everyone can go out and sell it. lol.? And on those lines…Media Post had a great piece today on the disappointing digital activation numbers for partners at the Super Bowl…and what the reasons were. Take a read.
