Today is Super Bowl Sunday in the United States. Although this is not a national holiday some people treat it like one. Today people all over the United States will gather around their television sets to watch “the big game.” On Friday I wrote a post that briefly reviewed how the game of football is played. If you are watching the Super Bowl somewhere in the world today and don’t understand all that is going on you might want to refer to my post on the rules of football for some insight into the game. The game of football is not intuitive* to figure out, in my opinion. Once you do have an idea of what is happening though, I hope you’ll agree that it is a fun game to watch. At the very least, there is always a lot of action to see. You might be asking yourself, what is the Super Bowl anyway and why is it so popular?
First of all the Super Bowl is the championship game for the National Football League (NFL). The NFL is the highest level of professional football in the United States. The Super Bowl is the national championship game for the NFL. It is played at the end of the football season. The football season that is now ending, first began in the late summer of the previous calendar year (2011). So, the Super Bowl today will determine the champion of the 2011 football season. The Super Bowl games are referred to using Roman numerals rather than the year in which the Super Bowl is played. This is done partly to avert confusion because the Super Bowl game is played in one calendar year (2012), but it represents the championship for the previous calendar year (2011). This year the two teams playing are playing in Super Bowl XLVI (46). The first Super Bowl was played in the United States on January 15, 1967 and there has been a Super Bowl game every year since that time. The winner of the Super Bowl each year receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy. This trophy is named after a famous coach in the NFL who coached for the Green Bay Packers team. That, in a nutshell**, is what the Super Bowl is all about.
So, why is the Super Bowl so popular? Well, the first answer to this question is that the Super Bowl is the championship match for America’s most popular sport. (A newspaper in the United States, USA Today, confirmed that football is considered the most popular sport among Americans in a poll taken in 2011.) For Americans the Super Bowl is as important as the national soccer championship match in many countries around the world. But just knowing about the popularity of football in the United States does not tell the full story of why the Super Bowl is so popular. Super Bowl parties in the homes of friends and families are very common in the United States. Whether a person likes football or not they are likely to attend a Super Bowl party; these parties add to the popularity of this event. Because so many people are watching the Super Bowl on TV the Super Bowl half-time show is also a big event and a very poplar show. Lastly, there are the Super Bowl commercials! The commercials shown during the Super Bowl are even popular, it is strange, but true. Many people watch the Super Bowl just to see the commercials – it’s true! Every year companies pay millions of dollars just to air*** a 30 second long television advertisement. Since companies are paying so much to put their advertisements on TV they want to make them good. Over the years there have been some very popular commercials that were first seen during a commercial break of the Super Bowl. People even vote for their favorite Super Bowl commercials. According to Fox Sports the following commercial was the most popular televisions commercial from the last Super Bowl (in 2011). You will have to watch the Super Bowl this year to decide for yourself what the best commercial is this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEH1omnG77c
* intuitive = easy to understand or instinctive
** in a nut shell = briefly or a brief summary
*** to air (a commercial or TV show) = to broadcast, to put on TV
