Television: Inflated Assets

The Super Bowl has always been the high point of the US sports calendar but this year’s game was of a different order. The battle last month of American football’s Green Bay Packers – a team many thought had seen its best years – against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Texas was the most watched, and most expensive, event in US television history. By the time the whistle blew on a brutal game, the Packers had seen off their Pennsylvanian rivals with a score of 31 to 25, returning the coveted Lombardi trophy to Wisconsin and a faded team to glory.