This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. Scott Detrow, at NPR, looks at this year’s Last Man competition: We’re going to tell you who won the Super Bowl. Yes, the game happened last week, but there’s an important warning for the eight people still in the running in a contest called Last Man. Competition’s pretty straightforward but a near impossible goal – go as long as you can without finding out who won the Super Bowl. I first heard about this game in a New Yorker article a few years back: The game runs on the honor system—pride is the only prize—and deaths are self-reported on Twitter. Those who play refer to themselves as “runners,” and the thing they are running from—the fact that New England beat Seattle—is known as “the Knowledge.” The only real rule is to stay in the country. Expand - View Original
It’s not the same level but I went 4wks in Europe avoiding the Anderson Silva title fight loss in2013 in the UFC was tough work
This sounds like a ton of fun. I enjoy the tradition of the Super Bowl too much to do it I think but man how cool.
I do this nearly every year since I live in Germany and watch the game recorded. Going a week though? Even here it would be extremely difficult. Usually I can make it through Monday at work without knowing the result/winner.
This would be so hard. No social media, no TV, no internet, no news. That’s just the entertainment unplugged. Then you’ve got word of mouth, random occurrences. It actually sounds kind of nice.
This is a lot like that game where you try to go the entire holiday season without hearing any version of The Little Drummer Boy, only way, way harder. I played and won that one this past year, actually haha
That's well and good, but nothing beats the guy that played the same game for the election: Man rescued from Taliban couldn't believe Donald Trump is actually president
Not as easy as you think. You'll definitely need to avoid the internet and any social media. Plus it's usually talked about on local news (Berlin, Germany), so don't listen to the radio or watch tv. Also avoid newspapers.
Nah, I'm sorry, but it is easy because I've done it myself year-after-year, lol. The time zone in Europe understandably has a significant impact - not everyone cares to stay up to ~2am. My Snapchat primarily had people watching solely for Justin Timberlake's performance. I personally only watched a list of the adverts after the game. I asked at work if people saw the SuperBowl and they said 'no'. That was that. The only reason I legit know who won the match is because of Sylvester Stallone uploaded something about the Eagles on Instagram afterwards lol. Even then, it's easy to forget as American sports are named after objects/animals for whatever reason. Sly is the only reason I know the Eagles is associated with Philadelphia lol. 25 World's Most Popular Sports (Ranked by 13 factors) American Football is only ranked #12th as 'most popular sport'. That's terrible. Not to take away from the fun for Americans, but clearly the sport is dead outside of USA. Imagine the ratings if they didn't have the half-time show or popular advert spots?
Outside of America. And I can say it’s very hard but may depend on your circle of friends I would struggle as friends with sports nuts. But then my sis who is more of a girly girl prob still doesn’t know. But would know JT sang
While that's true, the NFL as a league itself is the 5th most attended league of the year (1st for average attendance numbers) and leads all professional sports leagues in total revenue and revenue per team. American football as a sport may not be as big as soccer (which is DEFINITELY more massive across the world) or other sports, but the NFL itself is still massive. A lack of competition from other leagues/inclusion of other leagues (or maybe the intelligence of other nations to not try to compete and risk the CTE of its athletes) is likely the reason football as a whole is as low as it is. But it's also true that the NFL as a whole is on the decline, so maybe we'll see Side note: The halftime show has sucked for decades now
Anyway even if I tried to do this competition I wouldn't last 5 seconds after the end of the game because my one friend would immediately text me It never fails, I'll try to avoid paying attention to how my team is doing when it's a game I don't wanna keep up with, and I'll immediately get bombarded every time a play happens
In fairness, NFL is popular in a country with ~580 million people. The Premier League based in England only has 55 million people domestically. So the English stadiums are significantly smaller in comparison. Plus this league is competing with other huge European Football leagues (ie La Liga, Bundesliga) whilst the NFL doesn't have the same level of competition (unless Vince McMahon's XFL 2.0 takes off). Same thing therefore with broadcasting as NFL has a larger national audience. But yeah, not taking anything away from NFL; they undeniably have both high attendance figures and generate ridiculously high revenue. Source: Global attendances | Sporting Intelligence Yeah, I agree with all that. No denying its popularity in American culture. But it just fails short internationally. Pretty sure the majority of Europe would at least favour Rugby instead. At least the game clock doesn't stop frequently between plays.. lol
Well I was assuming the people in the competition are into sports, so they would be interested regardless of where they live. And you finding out from Sly is exactly how difficult it is to ignore. You still make connections from outside ways. It's getting much bigger in Germany, so I wouldn't say it's "dead" outside of the USA. They televise two games a week every Sunday, and the difference between 6 years ago and now is staggering.
I'm relatively into sports, just American Football doesn't really fall on the radar here in the UK. Never played it in school or anything. Typically, anytime you even mention it to a Brit they'll sarcistally remark, "it should be called 'handegg' not 'football'." And anyone who would be into it here would typically prefer Rugby instead. But yeah, social media has definitely broken down a lot of barriers. Yeah, I can't speak for Germany so I'll take your word for it. And that's honestly good news to hear. Different countries prefer different sports tbf. My old Croaian housemate at uni would religiously watch 'Handball', which I didn't even know was a thing, lol.