It's been called the "Nerd Bowl" because the teams hail from the hi-tech cities of San Francisco and Seattle. But – excepting perhaps for the cheerleaders – the clash on Sunday between the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks for a place in next month's Super Bowl will be a display of instinctual brutality.
Stoked by a rivalry dating back to the Gold Rush, the game is set to play out a more contemporary regional dispute: the Seahawks are owned by Paul Allen and draw support from Microsoft, the firm he co-founded, and the global shopping behemoth Amazon; the 49ers have established roots not only in San Francisco but increasingly in Silicon Valley, where Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter have their headquarters. (...)
"It's a neurotic rivalry because the cities are so similar," says Al Saracevic, sports editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. "They're both liberal cities on the west coast, coffee-obsessed, technology-obsessed and clearly football-obsessed."
The feud, say commentators, is not just play-acting for television. "I don't know anybody in here that likes anybody on the Seahawks. If you find one, let me know," insists San Francisco lineman Alex Boone.
The dislike, it seems, is mutual and the competitiveness between the teams and their fans has been exaggerated by a rivalry between their hard-headed coaches, Jim Harbaugh of the 49ers and Pete Carroll. "They're both good coaches and they've built arguably the best teams in the country," says Saracevic. "Now they're both looking at the Super Bowl – the biggest prize on the table."
But if technology rivalry means little to players on the field, it is more real in the two regions. Seattle prides itself on engineering skills and businesses that seek to establish relationships with their customers, dismissing Silicon Valley's recent tech contributions as social media software designed to gather users' data to sell to advertisers.
Stoked by a rivalry dating back to the Gold Rush, the game is set to play out a more contemporary regional dispute: the Seahawks are owned by Paul Allen and draw support from Microsoft, the firm he co-founded, and the global shopping behemoth Amazon; the 49ers have established roots not only in San Francisco but increasingly in Silicon Valley, where Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter have their headquarters. (...)"It's a neurotic rivalry because the cities are so similar," says Al Saracevic, sports editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. "They're both liberal cities on the west coast, coffee-obsessed, technology-obsessed and clearly football-obsessed."
The feud, say commentators, is not just play-acting for television. "I don't know anybody in here that likes anybody on the Seahawks. If you find one, let me know," insists San Francisco lineman Alex Boone.
The dislike, it seems, is mutual and the competitiveness between the teams and their fans has been exaggerated by a rivalry between their hard-headed coaches, Jim Harbaugh of the 49ers and Pete Carroll. "They're both good coaches and they've built arguably the best teams in the country," says Saracevic. "Now they're both looking at the Super Bowl – the biggest prize on the table."
But if technology rivalry means little to players on the field, it is more real in the two regions. Seattle prides itself on engineering skills and businesses that seek to establish relationships with their customers, dismissing Silicon Valley's recent tech contributions as social media software designed to gather users' data to sell to advertisers.
by Edward Helmore, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: Reuters/USA Today Sports
