Super Bowl: in your face, and a tribute to marketing genius

Every major national sporting event is in some sense a reflection of the country's character, but there is nothing quite so in-your-face about it as the Super Bowl, the apogee of Americanism. Part of this is very obvious indeed: there is the obsession with both violence and money, and the exploitative eroticism represented by the cheerleaders.

Some aspects, however, strike one a little more slowly. It is presumably the same unexpected phlegmatic side of the American character that both enables them to shuffle obediently into line at airports and to endure the constant interruptions of an American football game. There is the uniquely hierarchical nature of the sport, which elevates the quarterback, ex officio, to unique importance on the field and reduces everyone else to the status of helots and bodyguards.

The game is also an outlet for the nation's verbosity. The referee in last week's play-off between Oakland and Tennessee explained his decisions far more coherently, rationally and at greater length than President Bush explaining his reasons for war. It seems very bizarre; imagine a British referee trying to tell the crowd why the whistle had gone.

Above all, though, the Super Bowl is a tribute to American marketing genius. And when the Oakland Raiders play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in San Diego on Sunday, even those who don't care much for the sport itself can just sit there and marvel. For the contest between the football teams is merely part of the show. This is the Super Bowl for advertising: not only the most expensive night of the year - an in-game advert costs $2.1m (£1.3m) for 30 seconds - but also a showcase. It would be very naff indeed for a company to run a routine ad; they are expected to confect something bespoke and classy, or look pathetic.

In comparison, the pressure on the players is secondary. American football is so weirdly socialistic, with all the game's regulations rigged to ensure that last year's losers have the advantage the following year, that no one expects to win the Super Bowl. If it happens, it is a lucky break. Nike and Coke do not organise their corporate affairs on that basis.

It is that national genius that has enabled an event without deep historic roots to become quite overpowering. The Super Bowl began only in 1967, when two competing leagues merged. At first the competition was lopsided, but in 1969 Joe Namath, the New York Jets quarterback, "guaranteed" an upset victory over the Baltimore Colts and then delivered it, and so the legend began.

Super Bowl XXXVII does look like a promising addition to the annals, partly because it pits the league's best offence (Oakland) against the best defence. Oakland are the favourites because irresistible force always seems more compelling in sport than the immovable object. The Raiders' owner, Al Davis, took a conscious decision to forgo long-term objectives and buy short-term success and glamour; old English soccer fans might recall the way Stoke City once gloriously built a team round the ancient Stanley Matthews.

The Raiders' quarterback, Rich Gannon - the league's MVP this season - is 37 and was presumed to be on the scrapheap. His wide receiver, Jerry Rice - a legend across the bay at the San Francisco 49ers - is 40 and ditto. The safety Rod Woodson and linebacker Bill Romanowski are also old Super Bowl hands.

The one old hand not on Davis's side is his former coach, Jon "Chucky" Gruden, who left Oakland last season for the more downbeat setting of Tampa Bay. But he discovered, to his surprise, that he had a credible quarterback, Brad Johnson, and a remarkable set of defenders. And by the time he had imparted something of his own intensity and attention to detail (he is said to get up every morning at 3.17am) he had a bunch of winners in a city whose teams have never done anything. In contrast, his successor at the Raiders, Bill Callahan, is about the lowest-profile man in Oakland.

It looks like being quite a night. Tentatively, the prediction is for Gannon to maintain supreme aerial and passing accuracy to ensure a narrow Oakland win, and for Pepsi to beat Reebok for the most innovative ad. We do have a tentative winner in the traditional preliminary: weirdest media question of the week. Teenage reporter from Nickelodeon to Woodson of Oakland: "Who has the worst breath on your team?"