Yesterday, I experience my first NFL game in an official stadium (vs. on TV). My youngest son, Alex (10), is a huge football fan and is mad about the Denver Broncos. We have friends that could not use their tickets yesterday, so Alex and I headed to Mile High Stadium (not its official name anymore) in their stead. We certainly lucked out on the weather… beautiful sunny Denver skies and almost no wind. Furthermore, the Broncos actually won, which made the experience that much better for Alex–and for nicer conversations with other fans on the way home on the light rail.
Even ignoring the crowd aspect and energy, it was an interesting contrast (from televised games) to see the actual field, players and actions in real life. Our seats weren’t bad: second level behind the south end zone on the west side. Incidentally, the sun was setting behind us (it was a 2:05pm game) which caused the field to fairly glow and allowed us to see quite well. With my killer binoculars (10-30×60), I could see even better 😉
A kick or punt on TV is just not the same as the camera tracks the ball with little to no context given by players on the field. During actual play, the camera operators typically zoom in tight for those of us who still have postage-stamp-sized screens, giving a super-human illusion to all the activities. Now, the players are professionals so they are extremely good at what they do. But somehow, “I always thought they’d be taller…” Just kidding. But the field certainly looks a lot smaller in real life that it does on a screen. The NFL stadium experience was quite interesting. Almost 72,000 people in one area observing the relatively small playing field.
It truly is amazing what we’ll spend our money on in these financially trying times. Personally, I think it’s kinda cool that so many people choose to “not participate” in what has been labled as an economic recession. Perhaps if more of us did that, we wouldn’t be having such a catastrophic one–or one at all? Any thoughts?