Tottenham

The Super Bowl spectacle is marketing genius

It’s easy to not quite get the Super Bowl. What exactly is it: a sporting event, a music show, a fashion parade for the world’s coolest pair of shades, a new version of the Chippendales with the hunks wearing tight trousers and skid lids? Or, in its latest incarnation, a chance for the world’s most frenetic lawmaker to sink his last putt in a round of golf with Tiger Woods, board Air Force One and say: "Fly me to New Orleans." Or is it a chance to watch several vast and amiable black guys bulging out of their suits and bantering away about a possible three-peat, while Trombone Shorty plays a touching version of "America the Beautiful" and an announcer calls for a moment’s silence to mark the importance of "faith, family and football"?

Super Bowl

Football fans’ loyalty no longer lies with clubs, but players

From our UK edition

The world’s top footballers now have a bigger following than the clubs they play for. Fans are beginning to support superstar players as they move around from club to club rather than sticking with a team – and this threatens the very foundations of the sport. Devotion to a team – for centuries a (largely) peaceful way of channelling our tribalism – is disappearing Streaming and social media are largely to blame. After Pelé signed for the New York Cosmos in the mid-1970s, only 40,000 US football enthusiasts would flock to the old Giants’ stadium. Earlier this month when Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami in Florida, the club’s co-owner David Beckham claimed that Messi’s unveiling had 3.5 billion views online.