Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League, the pinnacle of professional American football. It is held annually on the last Sunday in January or the first Sunday in February, and is one of the most-watched television broadcasts of the year. The game and its ancillary festivities constitute "Super Bowl Sunday", which over the years has almost become a de facto national holiday in the United States.

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Origins

The Super Bowl was created as part of the merger agreement between the National Football League (NFL) and its rival, the American Football League (AFL). After its inception in 1920, the NFL fended off several rival leagues before the AFL began play in 1960. The intense competitive war for players and fans led to serious merger talks between the two leagues in 1966.

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One of the conditions of the agreement was that the winners of each league's championship game would meet in a contest to determine the so-called world champion of football. During the discussions to iron out the details, AFL founder and Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt had jokingly referred to the proposed interleague championship as the "Super Bowl." Hunt thought of the name after seeing his daughter playing with a toy called a Super Ball. The ball is now on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The name was feasible because postseason college football games had long been known as "bowl games" (The term originates with the Rose Bowl game, which was in turn named for the bowl-shaped stadium in which it is played). Hunt only meant his suggested name to be a stopgap until a better one could be found. Not having thought of one, the owners named the contest the NFL-AFL World Championship Game. Unsurprisingly, fans and media tended to use the shorter, unofficial name. Starting with the third contest in 1969, the name "Super Bowl" became official.

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After the NFL's Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls in convincing victories, some team owners feared for the future of the merger, since many doubted that AFL teams could compete with their NFL counterparts. However, in one of the biggest upsets in American sports history, the AFL's New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. One year later, the Chiefs won Super Bowl IV.

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When both the NFL and the AFL merged into one combined league before the 1970 season, three NFL teams joined the 10 AFL teams to form the American Football Conference (AFC), and the other 13 teams became the National Football Conference (NFC). Since then, the Super Bowl has featured the champions of the AFC and NFC. As of 2005, former AFL teams have won 10 Super Bowls, pre-1970 NFL teams have won 23 games, and two games have been won by teams created after 1970.

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The winning team receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named for the coach of the Green Bay Packers, who won the first two Super Bowl games. The trophy was named the Vince Lombardi Trophy prior to Super Bowl V in his honor following his death in 1970.

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Ratings and commercials

The Super Bowl tends to have high Nielsen television ratings which usually come in around a 40 rating and 60 share (i.e. on average, 40 percent of all U.S. households, and 60 percent of all homes tuned into television during the game). This means that on average, 80 to 90 million Americans are tuned into the Super Bowl at any given moment. Also it is estimated that 130-140 million tune into some part of the game. The most watched Super Bowl was 1998's Super Bowl XXXII between the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers which received a 44.5 rating and 67 share, attracting 90 million viewers. In terms of household percentage, the most watched was Super Bowl XVI in 1982 which was watched in 49.1% of households (73 share) or 40,020,000 households at the time.

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Following Apple Computer's 1984 commercial introducing the Apple Macintosh computer, directed by Ridley Scott, the broadcast of the Super Bowl became the premier showcase for high concept or simply extravagantly expensive commercials. Famous commercial campaigns include the Budweiser "Bud Bowl" campaign, and the 1999 and 2000 dot-com ads. Prices have increased each year, with reports citing a record $2.5 million (US) for a 30 second spot during Super Bowl XL in 2006.

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Las Vegas is the only city that is not allowed to run commercials during the game. This ban includes the pre and post game shows. If the television show Las Vegas stays on the air when NBC gets their next Super Bowl Broadcast (which will be Super Bowl XLIII in 2009), they will not be allowed to promote the series during the entire block of programming.

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Venue

The location of the Super Bowl is chosen by the NFL well in advance, usually 3-5 years before the game. Cities compete to host the game in a selection bidding process similar to ones used by the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup. To this date, the chosen venues have either been located in the southern regions of the United States where the wintertime weather is expected to be mild, or in domed stadiums where weather is not an issue.

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Coincidentally, no NFL team has ever played the Super Bowl on its own home turf. However, Super Bowl XIV (which involved the then-Los Angeles Rams) was played in the Rose Bowl stadium in nearby Pasadena; and Super Bowl XIX (which involved the San Francisco 49ers) was played at the nearby Stanford Stadium on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto.

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The designated "home team" alternates between the NFC team in odd-numbered years (the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005), and the AFC team in even-numbered years (the New England Patriots in 2004). The home team is given the choice of either wearing their colored jerseys or their white ones; this started with Super Bowl XIII. Prior to that, the home team always wore the dark jerseys. The Dallas Cowboys wore their rarely-used blue uniform tops in Super Bowl V, and lost to the then-Baltimore Colts, which has led to the widely-held belief that the Cowboys do not play well in their blue shirts. While most home teams in the Super Bowl choose to wear their colored jerseys, only the Cowboys in XIII and XXVII and the Washington Redskins in XVII have worn white as the home team.

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The television network showing the game changes from year to year. In the United States it is shared between three of the four major television networks - ABC, CBS, and FOX. Super Bowl XXXVIII was shown on CBS, Super Bowl XXXIX was shown on FOX, and Super Bowl XL will be shown on ABC, which will be the final NFL game broadcast on on that network for the forseeable future.

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With the new television contracts beginning in 2006, NBC, which last telecast Super Bowl XXXII in 1998, will take ABC's place in the network rotation starting with Super Bowl XLIII in 2009.

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Trivia

• The Super Bowl uses roman numerals to differentiate each game rather than the year it was held since confusion commonly arises as the NFL season spreads over two calendar years. For example, the New England Patriots, winners of Super Bowl XXXIX are the champions of the 2004 NFL season, even though the championship game was played in February of 2005.
• In the months leading up to Super Bowl XXX (30) it was discovered that some proxy servers were blocking the web site for the event. The reason for this was that "XXX" is usually associated with pornography, and proxy servers thought those trying to visit that site were trying to access pornography.
• Super Bowl XXXVI was originally scheduled to be played on January 27, 2002. But the game was moved back one week to February 3, 2002 because of the September 11, 2001 attacks. This was the first Super Bowl to be played in February. Most of the events two years afterward were scheduled in February. Also, because of the attacks, the Super Bowl is now a National Special Security Event (NSSE).
• Super Bowl XXXIX was the first such game to be tied after three quarters of play.
• No American Football Conference (AFC) team has ever won a Super Bowl that was broadcast on ABC (The NFC is currently 6-0). The closest an AFC team came to winning the Super Bowl on that network was when the Buffalo Bills lost to the New York Giants 20-19 in Super Bowl XXV.

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Super Bowl related Images and Photos (experimental)

Super Bowl XLIV	Super Bowl XLII	NFL Super Bowl Collection: Super Bowl I-XL	NFL Super Bowl Collections: Super Bowl XXXI-XL (DVD)
NFL Super Bowl Collection: Super Bowl I-XXX	NFL Films Super Bowl Collection: Super Bowl I-X (DVD)	Super Bowl Tickets XLIV	NFL Films Super Bowl Collection: Super Bowl XI-XX (DVD)
NFL Super Bowl XXXIX (DVD)	Super Bowl XL - Hines Ward MVP	NFL Films Super Bowl Collection: Super Bowl XXI-XXX (DVD)	Super Bowl XLII- Patriots vs. Giants