[b]An [u]Odd[/u] Coincidence[/b]

If you have ever lived in the United States then you already know that the Super Bowl (the Championship of American Football’s professional league) is the most over-hyped sporting event in the world. For two weeks the entire U.S. media market is saturated with so many stories on the Super Bowl that it becomes mind numbing. The actual event is watched by so many Americans that companies pay 3 million dollars for 30 second commercial spots.

As one of the few Americans who follows Handball, I’ve always though it somewhat amusing that in recent years Handball’s World Championships Final shared the same date on the calendar. And living in Europe, I was also one of the few Americans that could partake in both events, even if I time shifted the Super Bowl to Monday night. And yes even the Super Bowl, finds it way into European homes. Nothing more annoyed the French two years ago then the fact that they could watch the Super Bowl on free, over the air television (albeit at 12:15 in the morning), but they could only watch the Handball final on cable or satellite. (fortunately rectified this year, since France played in the final)

This year, with ESPN360 and Handballworldcup.tv a few more Americans also took part in the daily double of two championship games. Both of these were internet options, but perhaps the ESPN 360 exposure will lead to an ESPN broadcast. With an 11:30 AM start time the championship final would be a nice diversion before the pregame shows, which start several hours before the game.

[b]An [u]Odds[/u] Coincidence[/b]

As a Las Vegas resident, I was also amused at a strange “odds” coincidence. As most sporting fans know the Super Bowl is the number one betting event in the U.S. And you can bet on more than just the game. You can bet on a number of “proposition” bets. One of the more common bets is the “over/under” or total points scored in the game. For the Super Bowl this number was 46.5, which by a strange quirk of fate was the total score over/under being offered by online sports books for the France-Croatia match.

This coincidence got me thinking about the bizarre multi sport proposition bets offered in Vegas, that allow punters to bet on whether Dwight Howard will have more rebounds in an NBA game then the Steelers and the Cardinals will score in the first quarter. And it got me thinking that maybe some day, just maybe I’ll go to my sports book on Super Sunday some day in the future, look up on the big board and see a prop bet for Daniel Narcisse goals vs. Larry Fitzgerald receptions. Trust me, if we ever see that we’ll know that Handball has hit the big time in the U.S.

Article on Super Bowl prop bets: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/28916244/