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Brady can rest easy about legacy

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In 1967, a 30-second TV ad cost US$42,000 for Super Bowl I. Trumpeter Al Hirt was the half-time entertainment. The TV ratings were not good, particularly in the host city of Los Angeles where the game was blacked out because it was not sold out. But for NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, this was a seminal moment in American sports and he knew it. A detente had finally been reached between the established NFL and the upstart AFL and Rozelle, in what seemed like a fit of hyperbole at the time, claimed this would eventually be a defining day, the biggest on the sporting calendar.

Forty-five years later a 30-second ad costs US$3.5 million and Madonna, aided by a cast of hundreds, did the half-time show. Nostradamus had nothing on Rozelle. Today this football game is every bit as important to the ad industry on Madison Avenue as it is to the men wearing pads on the field. And I guess some careers could be made or shattered in the ad agencies on Super Bowl Sunday. But only on the football end are legacies crafted during the Super Bowl, fair or not.

In the legacy game, the grandeur of the moment defines the man and no man was under more scrutiny coming into Super Bowl XLVI than New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Since his collaboration with coach Bill Belichick began 12 years ago, in three of Brady's first four years as a starter they won the Super Bowl. That kind of early success was unheard of and could not help but inspire all-time great comparisons.

But after destroying the entire NFL in 2007 and winning 18 straight games, the duo came up short in the Super Bowl and were upset by the New York Giants. Four years later the Patriots were back to face those same Giants and everywhere you turned all of the media pundits were declaring that this game would define Brady's legacy.

But what about Madonna's legacy? Certainly that had to be at stake. Despite the massive audience, no act since U2 at Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 has used the opportunity to propel themselves into another stratosphere because of their riveting performance. Since that time The Who were inaudible, the Rolling Stones flat out awful and the Black Eyed Peas eminently forgettable.

This time around it seemed like pretty standard Madonna fare and nothing to propel the close to 200 million watching worldwide to run out and say I must buy tickets for her upcoming tour! But while the number of viewers watching the game in the US was 110 million, during Madonna's performance it rose to 114 million. That's quite a legacy in itself and although her performance was somewhat lacklustre, every ticket for her upcoming tour will still be sold so her reputation was never in jeopardy.

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