I'm about to commit a sacrilege so unAmerican that neither presidential pardon nor papal dispensation will provide absolution:

I hate the Super Bowl.

I hate its hype. Two-week ramp-up, previews, preshows, preshow previews, kickoff previews, halftime hoopla, sideline features, postgame previews, postgame show, postgame wrap-up featuring highlights from the postgame preview, and then, previews of next year's Super Bowl. Too much hat, not enough cattle.

The Super Bowl is no longer a game; it's a cultural touchstone, the one day where everyone puts aside their differences and stops doing what they normally do. Including, sometimes, the team you're rooting for.

Everything's for sale. Indianapolis, the host city this year, hasn't just been invaded, but annexed. Regular street signs have been changed to NFL team names. Pity the poor out-of-towner unaware that his hotel now lies at the corner of Seahawks Street and Texans Terrace. I know; life's a pitch.

The NFL, which loves to talk about its love for the fans, made fans pay $25 to attend Media Day – the day reporters ask insipidly stupid questions of the players and coaches. Did the NFL really need the $25 from these people, most of whom can't afford the thousand-dollar ticket price to the game? They always talk about doing something for the fans. Well doggone it, let 'em in free. You don't have to drain 'em of every dime every time.

But then, this is the league that charges for the right to say "Super Bowl," which is why radio and television ads always say, "The Big Game," which sounds really stupid because we all know they mean "Super Bowl."

The league now "awards" Super Bowls to cities as an incentive to publicly finance stadiums. Indianapolis opened its new facility, Lucas Oil Stadium, in 2008, the same year it was awarded this year's Super Bowl. Whadda cowinkadink!

And Indy would love to host the game again, so it has gone all out to be the perfect host. Downtown was blocked off all week and turned into "Super Bowl Village." Nightly events and concerts started the week before. Goodness, even the Village People performed!

Hotels jacked room rates as much as 1,700 percent – $2,000 a night at the downtown Crowne Plaza. A no-frills shanty on the city's ramshackle east side offered thousand-dollar weekend packages for $66-a-night rooms. To pay less, it's scenic Martinsville, 30 miles away, for just $200 a night.

Political grandstanders sought out their "me" moment. Labor unions marched over right-to-work issues pressing the state, and state Attorney General Greg Zoeller peddled a popular canard: Rampant prostitution around the Super Bowl. Only no one panics over that, so Zoeller added "underage girls" to his hyperbole. It lacked veracity, but it's good for votes.

Leave the game be so I can watch in peace. Alone, preferably. I'm not saying I couldn't attend a Super Bowl party or that I'm so devoid of friends I'd have to dress up the dogs in sweaters and tie them to the furniture. I just wanna watch the game.

I don't know how you do that with 30 people over the house screaming during the second quarter because you ran out of bean dip. By mid-fourth quarter, someone's usually spending quality time with the toilet while you're shutting off all the smoke alarms.

Maybe it's because I used to coach. I coached semipro football for years, so my perspective is different. I'm the guy who'd rather sit in the end zone at the stadium so I can watch the entire field as a play unfolds. I don't follow the football first – an annoying habit of television; I watch lineman first, because generally, what they do tells me where the play will go.

And I don't root for teams; I root for a good game. I don't have "a team." Ever get that guy who sez, "We gotta win this game!" "We?" What "we"? You're an employee of the ball club? Your check says San Francisco 49ers? (It couldn't possibly say Oakland Raiders; their fans are usually in jail this time of year.)

As a boy I had a team: the New York Jets. As fate would have it, I had to attend a wedding during Super Bowl III, but my friend and I snuck away and we watched Joe Namath beat the Baltimore Colts on a 13-inch black and white inside the valet parking booth outside the catering hall. Somehow, that felt right.

Maybe I hate the Super Bowl because I love football, and these days when it comes to the Super Bowl, it feels like football is just afterthought.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Bruce Maiman, a former radio show host who lives in Rocklin, coached semipro football in New York City. Reach him at brucemaiman@gmail.com.

• Read more articles by Bruce Maiman