As the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks squared off in Super Bowl XLIX Sunday night, some Syracuse University students weren’t just watching the action.

“I’ll now watch and analyze it from a production standpoint and a business standpoint, rather than a casual fan,” said Adam Luther, a junior sport management major who is enrolled in SPM 199: “The Super Bowl and Society.”

This is the fifth year that the class is being offered. It looks at the historical influence of the Super Bowl, its role in American culture and analyzes this year’s game. It has more than 90 students enrolled in it and is taught by sport management professor Dennis Deninger.

Deninger said Michael Veley, who is the chair of the Department of Sport Management, had the idea to tell the story of the last four to five decades of the United States and do it through the Super Bowl.

Luther said so far he’s learned just how big an affect the Super Bowl has on society.

“Obviously it has a huge impact economically with all the advertisements and promotions going on, but I wasn’t aware of how big it truly was,” he said.

Super Bowl XLIX will bring an estimated $500 million in economic impact to Arizona, according to the official website of the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee. A 30-second advertisement during the Super Bowl cost $4.5 million this year and 111.5 million people watched the Super Bowl in 2014, with a larger audience expected for this year’s game.

Luther said that while watching the game he would be looking at the types of topics and information broadcasters and reporters discuss as well.

“I want (students) to focus on how the stories are told,” Deninger said. “I want them to get a sense of this is as big as it is because of what’s come before it and what the potential is.”

Deninger said that he wanted students to watch the game with a “critical eye.”

“I want them to see how things have come together, how things that they take for granted like the Super Bowl were the product of various political and economic and social forces at work,” he said.

Jennifer Sweet, a freshman communication and rhetorical studies major who is taking the class, said she “didn’t realize how quickly it went from an event that no one wanted to host or attend” to one of largest events in the U.S.

Sweet said when watching the game, she would be paying closer attention to the technical things like the camera shots chosen and the way the game is commentated, but said “there’s a good chance I will be too caught up in the game to really notice.”

As the class has grown over the last five years, the Super Bowl has too. Deninger said the multi-platform approach, which includes social media, has added more of a value to the game. Next year will be the 50th Super Bowl and as it’s become more of a spectacle, it has essentially become a holiday in the U.S., he said.

Said Deninger: “Each year that we have a Super Bowl, it becomes that much more entrenched in the fabric of the American culture.”

Published on February 1, 2015 at 11:01 pm

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306