On Sunday, February 3, the world will be witnessing one of the major American cultural events, the 53rd Super Bowl game which will be played between the two-time defending American Football Conference champion New England Patriots and the National Football Conference champion Los Angeles Rams. Not only the live event is always sold out, but audience statistics reveals that this event is among the five most-watched American Television programs in history and it even seconds the UEFA Champions league as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide. Consequently, commercial time always pikes during this period with deals sometimes reaching millions of dollars. This doesn’t stop companies in their advertising efforts to produce captivating messages to grab the attention of the millions of potential consumers watching
Studies have also revealed food is consumed on the Super Bowl Sunday than any other period of the year except Thanksgiving; this includes 28 million pounds of potato chips, 1.25 billion chicken wings, and eight million pounds of guacamole. Another American obsession has been observed to be in very high demand on that day: gambling, more money is bet on that Sunday than any other event. (Source: The American Interest). We will try to understand why later in this article but before let’s have a brief look at the history behind Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL) which marks the end of the annual season that always begins in late summer of the previous year. It uses Roman numerals to identify each game with the first (Super Bowl I) being traceable as far January 15th, 1967 following the 1966 regular season. The game was created as part of an agreement between the National Football League (NFL) and its then rival, the American Football League (AFL) where it was convened that the champions from the two different leagues, later on, redesignated as conferences, will compete against each other to determine the ultimate champion of the NFL. Initially referred to as the “AFL-NFL Championship-Game” the term “Super Bowl” was used for the first time by Lamar Hunt, Owner of the Kansas City Chiefs by the time, during one of the AFL-NFL merger meetings. He, later on, indicated the name was likely in his head because his kids had been playing with a superball toy.
Having a look at the timing of the Super Bowl, we can observe it is very favorable. Occurring in mid-winter season, there are less outdoor activities so people are more driven to add it in their activity/watch list. So far as they have warm enough clothes, they are good to go (click here to discover our warm clothes collection to accompany you during winter). It usually begins shortly after 6 p.m. and lasts for three and a half hours, this leaves enough time for an adult to get home and prepare their work week as well as allowing kids preparing their school week. Like we said in the introductory lines of this articles the television has made it easy to watch it from home for those with low financial power, all that is required is a television set. With all the audience that has been recorded for this event, it is clear that only a tiny fraction of the audience witnesses it in person with majority cheering their favorite teams in front of their screens. A remarkable thing with this is that despite the shortcomings of TV, like reduced socialization, the Super Bowl has the opposite effect; it entices social gathering in sports club where fans share experiences and is subject of countless conversations in many household and offices, this among people of all ages, occupations and educational backgrounds
The passion observed for the Super Bowl fans could stem from the dramatic single contest nature of the event as compared to other major American professional sports like Basketball or ice hockey where a team has to win four games minimum out of seven. This added to the fact that Americans are the most competitive people in the world, with a strong habit of transforming any activity into a contest because they find it more entertaining. This could contribute in explaining the phenomenal numbers registered for gambling during such an event
While waiting to cheer up our favorite teams on Sunday, let’s not forget to stay warm in this cold season (Click here). Wish you all good time for this Super Bowl and let the best win!!! 😊