Faith will be a major theme at the Big Game.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
‘He Gets Us’: Jesus is coming to the Super Bowl — to the commercials, that is.
Two ads. Ninety seconds. A $20 million price tag.
The Associated Press’ Holly Meyer, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and the Washington Times’ Mark Kellner delve into the pricey campaign and its backers.
The bottom line, as AP explains:
They hope to counter the notion that religion is used to divide people, spending about $20 million to reach more than 100 million viewers at a time when the nation’s Christian population — and religious affiliation of any kind — are in decline.
Because religion is a touchy subject and prime-time advertising is so expensive, it is rare for faith to be promoted alongside the Super Bowl ’s perennially buzzed about beer and fast-food commercials. But the backers of the “He Gets Us” campaign see it as a great opportunity to reach so many people at once.
Faith and football: For the first time, two Black quarterbacks — Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles and Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs — will face each other during a Super Bowl.
Hurts and Mahomes have something else in common: They’re both “practicing Christians not afraid to publicly talk about their faith and how it helps them succeed at the highest levels,” as ReligionUnplugged.com’s own Clemente Lisi explains.
‘God of Sod’: George Toma is preparing the field for the Super Bowl for the 57th straight year.
“When I’m in heaven, I’ll be looking at your beautiful field,” the 94-year-old Toma tells the New York Times, “or I’ll be in hell looking up what kind of root system you have.”
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Photo via Shutterstock
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