Super Bowl

The game of all games. Every year the Super Bowl brings in the biggest TV audiences, highest ticket prices and generates the most talk around the office. It’s the one game of the year that everybody watches, regardless of whether they even care about football.

The Super Bowl is less of a game and more of an event. It seems like more people watch for the commercials and the extravagant halftime show rather than the game itself.

With the game two weeks away, people in Vegas have another reason to watch: money. People in Vegas love to bet, and Super Bowl wagers bring in more money to sports books than any single sporting event. (The NCAA tourney is bigger overall…but for single games the Super Bowl is king).

People come to Vegas specifically for Super Bowl weekend, and these bettors put down big money on the game. But just like people don’t watch the Super Bowl for the game itself, they don’t gamble only on the game either. Sportsbooks in Vegas give people all kinds of bets to wager.

Some of these prop bets are closely tied to the game, like will a team score in the final two minutes of the first half. The gambling columnist of the Las Vegas Sun recently wrote a column about some of these prop bets.

Other bets have little to do with the game and more to do with the event. For example, some sportsbooks take bets on the coin flip, or the over/under on the length of the national anthem. This stuff is interesting. It makes people laugh.

To capture this excitement surrounding the Super Bowl, I went to a number of local sportsbooks on the strip to see what kind of prop bets they are offering. The Hilton is is the book that is known for its prop bets, and they put out a 22-page listing of over 400 props for the game. I then put these bets together in a blog for our site.

Is this good journalism? I think so. It may not be gritty investigative reporting or uncovering some grave problem in society, but it’s interesting and it gets people talking. Also, this kind of story is local, timely and relevant. The story tells readers about some of the bets they can make, which is very practical.

Las Vegas is a gambling town, and people love to talk about betting. I found out how true this is when a blog I posted about some odd-ball bets being taken on the Presidential Inauguration through online gambling sites. This blog went up Monday night, and Wednesday it was one of the top-10 most read stories on the site.

Just like the blog about Inaugural bets, the story on the prop bets of the Super Bowl is interesting. It’s local and national, and it gets people talking. To me, that is journalism!

Category: Internship Thoughts, Uncategorized