Super Bowl, eh?
Psh. I'll take Game 7 of the World Series any day of the week. And twice on Super Sunday.
Full disclosure: I'm biased. It literally says "MLB Lead Writer" underneath my name. I can't hide that, so I might as well point to it and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
And even I can't tell you the entire World Series is better than the Super Bowl. That would be like arguing Fargo the TV series over Fargo the movie. Sure, there's an argument there. But the whole thing is just too apples and oranges.
But just Game 7 of the World Series against the Super Bowl? That's fair game. It's baseball's winner-take-all contest versus football's winner-take-all contest.
One of them is objectively better than the other. I can prove it with a few facts. And they're not even the alternative kind.
A Special Occasion vs. a Specialer Occasion
Look, it's great they're making more Star Wars movies.
Everyone likes Star Wars. Some will say otherwise. But to expose these people as liars, you need only give them a flashlight and wait for them to wave it around making "vwing" noises. Gets 'em every time.
I'll say this, though: Wasn't Star Wars more special when we had to wait years between movies rather than just 12 months?
Sure it was. And this brings us back to Game 7 and the Super Bowl.
Like new Star Wars moves, there's a Super Bowl every year. It's been that way for the last 50 years and will stay that way for the next 50 years. It'll probably be played by brain-damage-proof robots, but the 50 years after that will otherwise be the same.
So if you ever miss one, no biggie. Just wait a year. Or hop in the nearest cryo chamber and set the dial to early February. Either way.
You can't do that with Game 7 of the World Series.
The World Series may happen every year—except for that time in the mid-1990s that we don't speak of—but there's no guarantee it will go to a Game 7. The World Series can end in fewer than seven games and has 70 out of 112 times.
As for the 42 Game 7's that have happened, only 38 have been winner-take-all games. Do the math, and a winner-take-all Game 7 happens only once every three years. Just like Star Wars movies used to back when they were special occasions.
Since I can hear my editor saying "Uh, there he goes with the Star Wars" again, let's put it another way: World Series Game 7 is the Comet Encke (Google it) of American sporting events.
And while we're on the topic of sporting events...
Game 7 Is an Actual Sporting Event
You heard me. The Super Bowl isn't actually a sporting event.
It's all in the numbers, Jack. The average football game features just 11 minutes of action in a run time of three hours, 12 minutes. The average Super Bowl takes three hours, 35 minutes to complete and doesn't feature any extra football.
Going off these numbers, you can count on Sunday's showdown between the...[pauses to look it up]...New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons consisting of 5 percent football and 95 percent other stuff. Namely:
Players standing around and discussing what they'll be doing when they're not standing around.
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman making small talk.
A national anthem performance that will exist solely to be mocked.
A halftime performance in which Lady Gaga will sing some words in front of a light show.
Commercials
This is not a description of a football game. It is a description of an overlong, overstuffed variety show in which football is a third wheel alongside entertainment and commercialism. Watch the Super Bowl with the special glasses on, and you'll see the signs that say "Obey" and "Consume."
You know what you get with a Game 7? Baseball and, well, baseball.
There's an anthem in the beginning and possibly some silliness during the seventh-inning stretch, but anyone who tunes into a Game 7 to see just a ballgame will have their wish granted.
And did you know that the average baseball game features a whopping 18 minutes of baseball action? It's true! That's seven more minutes than the average football game.
To be sure, it's rational to fear that a Game 7 will take longer to get through those 18 minutes. No thanks to modern bullpens being what they are, Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight noted that baseball games do get longer in the postseason.
But not too long.
While the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians did need four hours and 28 minutes to complete their extra-innings romp in Game 7 of last year's World Series, every other non-extra-innings Game 7 has been played in under three-and-a-half hours. Shorter than the average Super Bowl!
And you know what else is cool about a Game 7?
The Ambiance Is Pretty Sweet, Too
I'm not going to say the Super Bowl shouldn't be played at a neutral site.
No, no. I get it. There's more to it than the NFL trying to line its pockets as much as possible. It's mostly that, but there's also a fairness component. If two teams are going to play just one game to determine who is superior, it wouldn't be right to give home-field advantage to one team.
Still, something is lost by playing the Super Bowl at a neutral site.
The problem isn't that the game isn't well-attended—because dear God. It's just that something weird happens when the audience is split 50-50 between fans of one team and fans of the other team.
With half the stadium cheering for one team and the other half cheering for the other team, the noise level rarely descends below a dull roar. It therefore doesn't always adhere to the emotional highs and lows of the game. It messes with your head, man.
There are no such issues in a Game 7.
Because the World Series alternates between the home ballparks of the teams doing battle, what you get is a national event with local flavors. It's one of the Fall Classic's charms, as MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince wrote: "Home crowds can truly impart some impact on the outcome, and there is something fundamentally interesting about watching World Series teams adopt to the environs of two parks in a single series."
By the time a series gets to Game 7, you know a majority of home fans are going to alternate between being anxious and excited, and a minority of away fans will do the same thing.
This affects the vibe of the game. Big cheers for the presumed favorites. Small cheers for the underdogs. Total silence when a moment is too tense for either side's fans to even breathe.
Even better is how the lack of a clock allows those tense moments to breathe. It must be hell for those at the ballpark. For everyone watching at home, it's great television.
Take what happened after Rajai Davis had fouled off a couple of 2-2 pitches against Aroldis Chapman in the eighth inning of last year's Game 7. About 30 seconds passed before the next pitch, in which the cameras found an Indians fan who was about to crack:
And these Cubs fans who were about to crack:
Then there was an Indians rally-capper:
Then Chapman trying to keep his cool:
Then Davis trying to do the same:
And then...bam.
Man, that was great. We should go again.
[Goes again]
Anyway, if it feels like moments like that are especially common in Game 7's, there's a reason for that.
The Games Are Better
Assorted quibbles aside, there have been some really good Super Bowls. Hell, even this MLB Lead Writer still has flashbacks to Kevin Dyson stretching futilely for the goal line in Super Bowl XXXIV.
But for the most part? Meh.
The average margin of victory in the Super Bowl is 14 points. That's two whole touchdowns. And quite a few Super Bowls have been blowouts. Punch "Super Bowl blowouts" into Google and you'll find entire slideshows dedicated to the topic.
It's a different story with Game 7. The average margin of victory is three runs, and even that's misleading. Of the 38 games, 29 have been decided by three or fewer runs. The breakdown:
3 runs: 8
2 runs: 7
1 run: 14
This is not a bug. It's a feature.
The problem with the Super Bowl is that it's often the first meeting between the two teams. There's no guarantee they'll have already played each other beforehand and gained firsthand knowledge of each other's strengths and weaknesses.
That's a recipe for a crapshoot. Alas, snake eyes will happen.
In the World Series, a Game 7 doesn't happen unless the two teams fight to a stalemate in the first six games. That doesn't happen unless they're evenly matched. And by the time they get to Game 7, each side has intimate knowledge of the other's strengths and weaknesses.
That's how classics are made, and Game 7 of the World Series is often all too willing and able to oblige.
On top of everything else Game 7 has on the Super Bowl, well, it's just plain better. That's just one man's slightly biased but also totally objective opinion.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.