Super Bowl LX is tonight. I’m having some friends over. The email invitation was titled “It’s the most boring night of the year.”

From that you can tell I’m nota big fan of American football. I only follow the NFL enough that I don’t sound completely ignorant if the topic comes up in conversation. I don’t have an emotional stake in who wins or loses. Seattle? New England? Who cares – the game is usually boring.

Of course many of the hundreds of millions watching the game aren’t there for the football. They are drawn perhaps by the halftime entertainment.

I’m an old guy. First time I had ever heard of Bad Bunny was when he was announced as the Super Bowl headliner. I don’t know his music, though I note his latest album won the Grammy for album of the year. I’ll probably watch the halftime show just to see what he has to say about Donald Trump.

It used to be that the big draw was the advertising. Companies can pay ten million dollars for one spot. Advertisers looked to create memorable commercials that would be talked about for days.

It used to be that we never got to see those commercials in Canada. Our cable television companies gave us a Canadian feed with Canadian commercials. They usually weren’t as memorable. We felt left out.

The internet changed that. These days you can find commercials online that you didn’t see broadcast. What’s more, companies aren’t waiting for the game to unveil their spots. They put them out early (and sometimes in longer versions) to create a buzz before the big game.

A couple of days ago I read a newspaper review of this year’s Super Bowl commercials. they were ranked by the reviewer’s preference. I must admit, i stopped watching after the first couple of dozen. Most of them bored me.

I thought the reviewer’s favorite was stupid – but reviewing art is by nature a matter of opinion. A couple of ones he thought were weak I thought were really clever. Not that they would move me to buy the product, but I liked the commercial.

Having those ads online already would seem to take away one of the prime reasons for people, or at least Americans to watch the game. Except it probably doesn’t make a difference.

The Super Bowl is a snoozefest, but I will be watching anyway. That points to the power of a shared cultural experience. In this fractured world there seems to be very little that can bring people together. As boring as I expect the game to be, I understand that it does bring people together. Which would seem to be a good thing.