They leapt from their seats in the stands, bars and living roomsaround the country as rookie Franco Harris reached down intoimmortality, plucked the football from the air above his laces andcarried Pittsburgh to the next playoff round.
To a 10-year-old boy in Penn Hills, a few miles away from thestadium, it sounded exciting, but Ed Arke had no idea how close tothe ground that football came before Harris grabbed it.
"We couldn't watch it," said Arke, associate professor ofcommunication at Messiah College in Cumberland County. NationalFootball League blackout rules before 1973 prevented televising anyhome game, even an AFC playoff game. Except for the 50,000-pluspeople in Three Rivers Stadium that December day in 1972, WesternPennsylvanians had to wait until the 6 p.m. news to see perhaps themost famous play in football history.
When the Steelers and Green Bay Packers take the field Sunday,there aren't many places on the planet where people won't be able tosee the game live.
Forty-two cameras, connected by 50 miles of audio, video andfiber optic cables, will carry images of the game out of CowboysStadium in Dallas. Some camera locations sound like trick plays: theHigh Corner Reverse, Near Corner Right and Reverse High 50Isolation.
Thirty-five media companies around the world will broadcast SuperBowl XLV in nearly 200 countries, with commentators providingcolorful sidebars in more than 30 languages, said Nathan Wolf,spokesman for NFL International. Armed Forces Network will transmitthe game to troops stationed in 132 countries, including war zonesin Afghanistan and Iraq, a Department of Defense spokesman said.
"There's a huge international presence," said Tim Newman,professor of sports management at York College. He was in Botswanain 2001, the year his team, the Baltimore Ravens, won the SuperBowl. "The talk in Botswana was all about the Super Bowl and wherethey could go and watch it. ... Most people in Botswana don't haveTVs."
It took an act of Congress and innovative marketing by ABC tonudge the NFL away from its early fear of television. ABC, feelingleft out as the only network without football broadcasts, createdMonday Night Football in 1970.
"Football was really the first to do this, to put the sport inprime time. The approach ABC took, they made it about more than thegame itself, with (Howard) Cosell, (Frank) Gifford and DonMeredith," Arke said.
Then in 1973, the year after Pittsburgh TVs were blocked fromreceiving Harris' Immaculate Reception, Congress passed a billnullifying blackout agreements if games sell out 72 hours beforestarting. President Richard Nixon signed it into law that Sept. 14.
The combination "really turned into something more than theycould've anticipated or expected," Arke said.
About 53 million people watched the Super Bowl in January 1973.Ten years later, more than 80 million tuned in. In 1993, more than90 million watched, according to Nielson ratings.
"Then came along ESPN, which brought rise to the 24-hour sportsnetwork, which has now become the 24-hour news cycle. Whether it'spolitics, sports, movies, cooking shows," it's available any time,said Newman. "With cable TV and satellite TV, anybody in the UnitedStates can watch any game that they want."
Rather than contracting with one media company, like most sportsleagues, the NFL signed deals with three of the four major networks.Each network tries to promote games, but "in reality they arepromoting football in general," according to a Nielsen analysis ofthe NFL's media strategy.
Last year, Super Bowl XLIV became the most-watched show ever,with 106.5 million viewers, dethroning the final episode ofM.A.S.H., which held the record for 27 years.
Fueled by advertising rates this year averaging more than$100,000 per second, the game transcends mere television. Networksdescend on the host city months in advance. The NFL holds workshopsand conferences for small businesses in the region to show them howto cash in.
"It's not just a TV game that you hope you can get a hold of, ifyou're in the right place. It really has long-term effects," saidHomer Erekson, dean of Neeley School of Business at Texas ChristianUniversity in Ft. Worth, where the Steelers practiced this week.
The NFL blacks out games if tickets remain unsold, because theteams' business models rely on ticket revenue to pay for fieldmaintenance, coaches salaries, utility bills -- basically everythingbut players' salaries, which network contracts cover, Newman said.
Outside the United States, where lucrative contracts withnetworks don't apply, the league offers an Internet and wirelessservice called GamePass, which will allow subscribers to watch thegame on computers or smartphones.
"There's no ability to watch the Super Bowl (online) in theU.S.," Wolf said.
The same is true above the United States, but that's not theNFL's fault.
Orbiting Earth 16 times a day, the International Space Stationgets handed off from satellite to satellite to keep it in voicecontact with ground control at Houston. During a 17,000-mile-per-hour hand-off 200 miles above, say, Burma, reception can becomespotty.
"Scott Kelly is a bit of a sports fan," NASA spokesman KellyHumphries said about the commander of the International SpaceStation. Despite about 18 rigidly planned hours a day of working,exercising and eating, "it's not impossible to carve out" time towatch the big game.
The crew is scheduled to be sleeping during the Super Bowl, soNASA likely will send a recorded version to the station, Humphriessaid.
"The trick," he said, "will be not giving away who won."
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