Too Late for NFL to Change Coarse?

Now that they’ve swept up the confetti, the silver-star pasties and the crumpled written apologies from CBS, MTV, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake and the NFL, preparations for Super Bowl XXXIX have begun.

The date is Feb. 6, 2005. The site is Jacksonville, Fla. And right now, parents across America are making plans for that day -- to prepare chili and hot dogs, to buy chips and dip, to put cans of soda on ice, to gather the kids together ... and drive them to the park for an all-day family picnic.

Later, after Mom and Dad have studied the videotape and deleted all the objectionable material -- commercials, halftime show, postgame news programs covering the other sporting events of the day -- they can reconvene the youngsters for a family viewing of Tom Brady’s bid for a third Super Bowl MVP trophy.

Super Bowl Sunday 2004 was a tough day for parents of young children, young children, John Kasay and fans of the Carolina Panthers, in roughly that order. The Panthers and Kasay lost to the New England Patriots -- most of the country saw that bit coming. But families gathered around the TV set expecting a long day of wholesome entertainment were thrown for a loop, parents left speechless when asked by the next generation of NFL fans to explain how flatulent horses and crotch-biting dogs are supposed to make adult mouths water for beer.

Or what’s “erectile dysfunction,” and what is the game Coach Ditka wants us to stay in? Is that anything like Little League?

Or where did Janet Jackson get her tear-away jersey ... and can sis get one on EBay just like it?

Or where did that strange man Riverdancing in his jock strap at midfield get his tear-away referee’s uniform ... and can little Billy get one just like it?

Better change the channel. Let’s see how the Lakers did. Right. Good. Here’s a postgame interview with Shaq ... and he just said what? And then he said that?

Better get back to the horse’s gas.

The NFL likes to promote its annual championship game as a national holiday, a yearly tradition during which friends and families get together to celebrate America’s twin national pastimes: football and television-watching. Just like Christmas, there is food to be eaten, laughs to be shared, hangovers to be had. And presents to be exchanged, such as the game-winning drive Kasay gift-wrapped for New England with his out-of-bounds kickoff.

But, as Sunday vividly illustrated, there are differences as well. On Christmas, for instance, families don’t turn on the TV expecting to see Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and get “Dancer, Prancer and Vixen Gone Wild!” instead.

And the Grinch, frustrated in defeat, never groused to a slope-side reporter, “People pay good money to watch me steal Christmas. The Whos try to take over the [expletive deleted] game.”

Reporter: “Grinch, we’re on live.”

Grinch: “I don’t give a [expletive deleted].”

On television’s biggest day of the year, that was the day on television at a glance. Crotches bitten and grabbed on Channel 2, Shaquille O’Neal cursing through a postgame interview on Channel 9.

The NBA suspended O’Neal one game and fined him $275,000 for his unsportsmanlike use of the English language. Laker Coach Phil Jackson believes the league overreacted. Maybe so. But you can picture David Stern and his minions taking it all in on Sunday and deciding, “We better do something. I mean, we’re not the NFL.”

The NFL is in a weird state. Its biggest game is 38 going on 39. The Super Bowl has hit middle age. Everything about CBS’ telecast reeked of midlife crisis: Baby Boomers trying to act 20 years younger during a hey-we’re-with-it (yeah, right) pregame show, commercials about sports cars and male enhancement drugs, a halftime-show game plan borrowed from the Bada Bing.

It’s a very confused league right now. It grinds its teeth when these kids today celebrate touchdowns with their mobile phones and their Sharpie pens, it hates the edgy ESPN soap-opera-on-steroids “Playmakers,” yet it turns over its halftime show to MTV and litters its showcase telecast with commercials overdosed on bathroom humor -- up to and including one ad that featured toilet paper hanging out of the back of a football player’s pants.

The NFL thinks old and tries to act young, never a flattering combination. It no longer knows what’s cool or hip, but it’s rolling in money, so it hires people, MTV and advertising specialists, who are supposed to be experts on this stuff.

The result was the first Super Bowl ever to warrant an FCC investigation. After the halftime show ended with Timberlake exposing Jackson’s right breast with all of America watching, FCC chairman Michael Powell denounced the incident as “classless, crass and deplorable” and said his organization will determine if decency standards were violated.

Scott Harris, president of the Westlake-based marketing firm Mustang Marketing, said he believes the Super Bowl halftime show “reflects poorly on the NFL, but even more poorly on society as a whole. Clearly, we’re no longer drawing the line. We just continue to push it. We’re moving it at an accelerated rate.

“If no one has the courage to draw that line, there’s no shortage of people that will take advantage of the line. You have people now that would be very happy to run hard-core pornography on prime-time TV.... Cable is pushing network TV in a very dangerous direction.”

Steve Rosner, founding partner of the New Jersey-based marketing company 16W Marketing, said that with Jackson and “that kind of entertainment, you’re opening yourself up. This occurred, and the NFL needs to take a look in the future [about] how they’re going to handle these situations.

“I don’t know if they thought the performers were going to be holding their crotch during most of the performance. The attire was uncalled for. I like to watch the game with my two girls. I understand the entertainment value, but you also have to protect your downside here and have respect for your viewership.”

CBS, MTV and the NFL claim they were ambushed by the Jackson-Timberlake maneuver, which seems dubious in light of MTV’s pre-Super Bowl hype about Jackson’s performance promising “shocking moments.” But CBS approved every commercial that was aired, pocketing an average of $2.3 million per every 30-second spot.

Among those were three Bud Lite commercials that featured a dog trained to fetch beer for his master by attacking another man’s groin, a romantic sleigh ride ruined by horse flatulence and Cedric the Entertainer getting a surprise bikini wax at a spa.

They set the tone for a collection of commercials that was largely panned by critics and marketing experts. Greg Clausen, executive vice president/director of media for the Chicago-based advertising agency Cramer-Krasselt, said he saw “a lowering of the bar” with Sunday’s commercials.

“Last year, things were staid,” Clausen said. “It was post 9/11 and people were getting ready for the war in Iraq. It was more somber. That was out the window this year. It was slapstick and bathroom humor.

“It was kind of a lowering of standards, and I thought the creativity was very poor. I saw a couple of commercials that had no business being on [during] the Super Bowl....

“Even the entertaining ones, like the flatulent horses, if you laugh, you almost felt guilty about laughing. It’s pretty base-level humor.”

Clausen called it “an underwhelming creative display this year. I hope this isn’t a precursor of where it’s going.”

The outlook isn’t brilliant. An AOL poll of Super Bowl viewers ranked the horse sleigh commercial as the second most popular ad among respondents, with the crotch-biting dog placing third and the bikini wax sixth. A similar poll by USA Today was topped by the attack-dog ad, with the horses coming in at No. 4.

Such is life in today’s NFL. Standards have been lowered on and off the field, to a point where mediocrity wins playoff berths and division championships and most popular commercial polls. Greatness is no longer the No. 1 objective, not in a time and place where sliding by as the least objectionable option in a lousy field will suffice.

The NFL isn’t what it used to be, and neither is Super Bowl Sunday. The big game is pushing 40 now, it has let itself go, and it’s taking all of us along for the ride, with the convertible top down. Back in its prime, Super Bowl Sunday was Joe Namath’s shaggy mane bouncing around the Orange Bowl with youthful white-shoed swagger. This year, it was one very bad comb-over.

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Times staff writer Sam Farmer contributed to this report.