Every-Thing Sports

Jermaine's Super Bowl Memories

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New England Patriots website

On Sunday evening, Super Bowl 53 will be played between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams. Sports bars, restaurants, dives, lounges, and other places of public gathering will be bubbling with party-goers. As will the various homes and other private establishments of those who prefer a less public atmosphere. .

Different people have their own preferences about how they choose to consume and remember different Super Bowls. Some are marked by bets made and money won. Some are looked upon fondly because your team won, or you spent it with people having an amazing party. Here's how I remember some past Super Bowls:

Super Bowl 31 (1997)

1997's Super Bowl was a first and a last for me

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Taking place on January 26, 1997, Super Bowl 31 saw the Packers beat the Patriots 35-21. It was the first time the game was held in my hometown and I was old enough to enjoy some of the sites and sounds. Imagine being a 16-year old living in New Orleans, and your teacher takes your English class on a field trip to see a play in The French Quarter, then cutting your class loose for hours to roam freely. It was also the last time I got to enjoy it with my little brother who was murdered a few weeks later. To this day, I've never been the same and have had a love/hate relationship with this time of year.

Super Bowl 38 (2004)

When "wardrobe malfunction" entered the lexicon

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On February 1, 2004, we were treated to a great game and learned a new phrase. The Patriots beat the Panthers on a field goal with four seconds left in the game. During the halftime show, technically after the game and the next day, we learned about the phrase "wardrobe malfunction" when Justin Timberlake pulled on Janet Jackson's top revealing her bare boob complete with ornate nipple ring on live broadcast television. My 10 month old son was almost dropped due to my shock and awe reaction. This was also the start of our family tradition of watching the game at our own home.

Super Bowl 44 (2010)

Brees' son, Baylen, was fascinated with confetti

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I'll never forget February 7, 2010 as long as I'm of sound body and mind. The Saints beat the Colts 31-17. The team I grew up watching and rooting for my whole life, the team that had caused me so much grief and pain, they had finally topped the football mountain. I took a road trip with my friend Geno to New Orleans to watch the game with my family. Because we also saw the Manning boys grow up and play football nearby, my maternal grandmother felt the need to troll the family by wearing Colts gear. When Tracy Porter caught the pick six to seal the game, I took my jersey off, ran outside and danced in the street and on top of my truck. Turns out it was the last Super Bowl I watched with my maternal grandmother as she passed away a few years later. My wife later told me my son was so upset at how the game was going, that they took him to watch a movie at halftime. Wonder where he gets that from?

There are plenty of good memories, and bad ones that surround Super Bowls. I shared some of mine here today that were pretty near and dear to my heart. As hard as it may be sometimes, I like being vulnerable to you guys. One of my favorite recent memories was last year being able to write a column on Super Bowl 52 for this website. I look forward to doing the same thing this year. Go out this weekend and create some memories this Super Bowl Sunday.

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The Rockets host the Warriors for Game 1 this Sunday. Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images.

They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.

They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.

Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.

In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.

“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”

By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.

Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.

“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.

In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.

And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.

The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.

“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”

All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.

It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.

FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.

“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”

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