Super Bowl

Last year, over 106 million Americans watched the Super Bowl, making it the most watched television show ever.  Sports fans watch it because it's the biggest NFL game of the year.  Non-sports fans watch it because the commercials are the most anticipated set of commercials during any one show; nearly all of them will be new, and most will have high production values.  People will talk about the game at least for a few weeks or months; they may talk even longer about the commercials (if they're memorable enough).

So what?  Well, come on, teachers!  106 MILLION people are all going to be watching the same thing.  I don't know what the demographic breakdown is, but I bet a good 75% of middle school and older students will be watching the Super Bowl (and commercials).  All of these students will come to school the next day with a common experience among them.  Incredible!  The only other times this could happen would be incredibly major news events (which cannot usually be planned) or huge local events (town fairs or something of the sort).  But with these events, not every student is going to have the same experience.  With the Super Bowl, while their environment will be different (are they at a party or by themselves or maybe just their family?), they will all see and hear the same thing over the course of about 4 hours.

With apologies to Dan Meyer, What Can You Do With This?