For those of you who live under a rock, the biggest football game of the year was played just last week in Minneapolis. The Philadelphia Eagles had a 41-33 victory over The New England Patriot.

Personally, I have never been a huge football fan. My parents never watched the games on ESPN and my brother never played so I didn’t get dragged along to any games. Actually, nobody in my family really watched any sports on television.

This in itself is probably shocking to most people. What else is there to do on a Sunday afternoon but watch a bunch of dudes run around and beat each other up? Believe me, I have found much more interesting things to do with my time on every game day from September to January.

This past Sunday was the 52^nd annual Super Bowl. As the biggest sports event of the year it was estimated that over one hundred million people watched the big game according to CBS News. That’s about one third of the entire country.

The average price for a ticket to the game was about $5,500 per ticket. According to Seat Geek, the most expensive ticket was $175,000. This is over three times the average yearly salary of Americans, which according to Fox Business is just $50,000. To the average American, it would be absurd and impossible to spend that much money on a single game.

I just don’t understand why some random game is such a big deal. The money and dedication that the country dedicates to the Super Bowl has almost turned it into a national holiday. There are tons of parties with obscene amounts of fried food, ridiculous commercials and a football game that goes on for way too long.

One problem I have with football is that nothing happens. It’s so boring. I might get some hate mail for saying that but seriously, it can last up to five hours. There are so many breaks throughout those five hours that only like an hour of that is actually entertaining. For example, after an interesting play happens within five seconds, the referees will review it in a booth for ten minutes and then decide when the next play will start. The ratio of time spent watching the play versus the time spent waiting for the next play to start is way too long.

Basketball, on the other hand, is a game that never stops. Someone will score and then the other team will take the ball within a second and the next play will begin. There’s not so much time spent standing around like with football.

Despite the time wasted by Super Bowl players standing around in football games, the worst part of the Super Bowl is how insane it makes people. The Philadelphia Eagles won their first Super Bowl in history, so their fans were pretty pumped about it. The way that they expressed their excitement, however, was not something that fans should be proud of. After the victory, swarms of Eagles fans ran into the streets of Philadelphia and destroyed the city, according to the Washington Post. The usual alcohol that accompanies these games threw any sort of order out the window as people broke laws left and right. Photos and reports from various news outlets showed fans causing chaos by doing everything from ransacking stores to flipping cars.

It is safe to say that football is not my favorite sport to watch and I think it is over-hyped. I can’t wait for the days when basketball becomes the most beloved sport in the country.

Jill Morton is a columnist for Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]