NEW ORLEANS — John Madden once said the biggest gap in sports was the difference between the winner and loser of the Super Bowl. And if you were comparing all of America’s most grandiose sports spectacles, the biggest gap is the one that exists between Super Bowl supremacy and anything else with the audacity to try and come close.
Sting called it “Americana at its most kitsch.” Paul McCartney once remarked, “There’s nothing bigger than being asked to perform at the Super Bowl." Legendary New York ad executive Jerry Della Femina — the inspiration for the alpha-chauvinistic television drama “Mad Men” — dubbed it “Judgment Day,” adding “[P]oliticians have Election Day and Hollywood has the Oscars.