[Desi Spotting = items with a South Asian connection - see our archive]
Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011: Live-blogging the Super Bowl on this post, looking for South Asian stuff during the telecast - starting 6:30 pm EST. You can see all the commercials at http://foxsports.com/ads
What did we miss? Email us: saja at columbia.edu or @sajaHQ on Twitter.
- See the 2010 Super Bowl desi live blog here.
- See the 2009 Super Bowl desi live blog here.
- See the 2008 Super Bowl desi live blog here.
- See 2007 post about a single Bud Light ad.
We'll be looking for sideline shots of Brandon Chillar, who is a member of the Green Bay Packers. A terrific linebacker for the team, he was injured in November, so is not in uniform tonight. You can listen to the SAJA webcast from 2009 with Chillar; his agent, Jim Ivler, his agent; and Kevin Negandhi, ESPN anchor.
11 am ET: Listen to SAJA's Super Bowl Sunday Webcast:
SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, and SAMMA, South Asians in Media, Marketing and Entertainment Association, present a conversation about the biggest day in American sports from a South Asian perspective. Join us as SAJA co-founder Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) and sports marketing prof Vijay Setlur (@vijaysetlur) chats with ESPN's Kevin Negandhi (@knegandhiespn), who's co-hosting SportsCenter that night; Anish Shroff (@anishESPN), ESPN anchor-reporter, who covers college footballl; Adnan Virk (@adnanvirkESPN), ESPN anchor; Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala), NY Giants reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who is covering the Super Bowl; and Arash Markazi (@arashmarkazi) columnist for ESPNLosAngeles.com. We had hoped to have Chillar call in for a few minutes, but he wasn't able to join us (see above for our 2009 webcast with #54).
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12:08 pm: SAJAer and ESPNEWS anchor Adnan Virk (@adnanvirkESPN) (or the right) co-hosts "Highlight Express," filled with Super Bowl coverage. Negandhi was a guest on SAJA's Super Bowl webcast - see link above - and discussed his career path, advice for those interested in sportscasting and more. Click on image for bigger version.
10:02 pm: A desi gets a Super Bowl ring - Brandon Chillar (who is on injured reserve) will be among those who get a Super Bowl Ring as the Packers beat the Steelers. That makes him the second South Asian to win a ring (Bobby Singh was the first, with the St. Louis Rams).
From an 2009 post on SAJAforum, here are the only two other South Asian players to play for the NFL:
- Bobby Singh, St. Louis Rams (the only player, perhaps, to be on the teams to win an NFL Super Bowl, a Canadian Football League Grey Cup and an XFL championship)
- Sanjay Rajiv Beach, who played four years from 1989-1993 (for the NY Jets, Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers); he is in the record books for catching soon-to-be superstar Brett Favre's first proper completion, in 1992 (Favre's very first completion was a pass deflected to, and caught by, Favre himself).
9:58 pm: SAJAforum exclusive! This is a photo of SAJAer and ESPN anchor Kevin Negandhi (@knegandhiESPN), taken minutes before he hosts SportsCenter, which goes live on ESPN as soon as the Super Bowl ends on Fox.. The SportsCenter right after the Super Bowl as got to be one of the highest-rated episodes of the most popular sports shows in the world. Negandhi was a guest on SAJA's Super Bowl webcast - see link above - and discussed his career path, advice for those interested in sportscasting and more. Click on image for bigger version.
UPDATE - 10:08 pm: A photo of Negandhi in action:
8:20 pm: SAJAer Aman Batheja (@amanbatheja), a reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is tweeting from the action. Here are some of his tweets:
amanbatheja 8:19pm via twidroyd
Jumbotron giving crowd instructions. "Break glow sticks" "Wave glow sticks slowly" #sbst #sbxlv
amanbatheja8:12pm via twidroyd
jerry jones was right. this is the greenest #superbowl ever #sbst #sbxlv http://twitpic.com/3x9j2l
And you can see one of his blog posts here, which is about fans outside the stadium (which is where you see him below).
7:40 pm: From tweets to @sajaHQ by Niraj Warikoo (@nwarikoo), religion reporter for the Detroit Free Press:
The guy who helped former Steelers all-star center Mike Webster when he was sick was an Indian-American, Sunny Jani http://es.pn/hch7fM
"For the last six years of Mike Webster's life, from 1997 to 2002, Jani was his most consistent, most constant companion."
7:05 pm: There are three Groupon ads coming up during the Super Bowl telecast (featuring Cuba Gooding, Jr., Timothy Hutton, and Liz Hurley). The site with came to worldwide attention when it turned down Google's offer of a $6-billion acquistion, is now preparing for an IPO said to be valued at $15 billion. The desi connection? Groupon's VP of product development is Suneel Gupta (@guptathink), who we featured on SAJAforum two years ago when he launched KahaniMovement with his brother Dr. Sanjay Gupta (@SanjayGuptaCNN) of CNN. Suneel's wife is SAJAer Leena Rao (@leenarao), who is a writer at TechCrunch, the popular tech news site.
6:45 pm: While you're watching the most famous hair in American sports - that would be Troy Polamalu's lustrous tresses - take a moment to see a NY Post article called "The Hair Pair." It's about how SAJA Board member Raakhee Mirchandani (@raakstar) has the same hair as Polamalu.
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