So the only thing you know about the Super Bowl is that it’s not a bowl in the sense of a cereal bowl or a dog bowl.
But, more than likely, at least you know it’s the biggest football game of the year. It is much like the World Series of football or the Academy Awards of football. The Miss America of football. You get the idea.
Why is it called Super Bowl?
In 1916, Myron Hunt, an architect accepted a commission from the Roses Association to design a stadium for a college football game. The stadium was finished two years later.
Hunt modeled the new stadium after Yale’s bowl-like stadium, named Yale Bowl. It was indeed similar to a bowl; hence they used the word Bowl.
The Roses Association then called the game the Rose Bowl. Other schools and cities started calling their tournaments bowls too, whatever the shape of their stadiums.
The NFL picked up on this idea in 1951 when they created the Pro Bowl. Then, three years after the NFL and AFL merged, they renamed their already annual championship game the Super Bowl.
How many teams play in the Super Bowl?
Two. One from the American Football Conference and one from the National Football Conference. You may ask, why do they need more than one conference? Don’t they already know what they’re doing?
Like amoebas, each division is split into four: North, South, East, and West. And within each division there are teams.
In the Super Bowl, there are two opposing teams, like the Jets against the Sharks in West Side Story. And they rumble, just differently, but they don’t sing – well, maybe the winners do.
Have the Atlanta Falcons ever won a Super Bowl?
The Falcons played two Super Bowls and lost both.
The Denver Broncos beat them 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII. The second Super Bowl loss came 18 years later in Super Bowl LI when the New England Patriots scored 34 points against the Falcons 28.
Guess who won MVP in Super Bowl 51? Tom Brady. Big surprise. Tom Brady getting MVP is like Meryl Streep winning the Oscar.
How did American football begin?
Football was an offshoot of rugby, like a TV series spinoff, played at Ivy League schools. Walter Camp, a Yale student, is generally credited with adapting the game from rugby to American football. He is known as the “Father of American Football.”
Why does my British friend insist football is also British?
In Britain, they use the word “football” for the game that in America is called “soccer.” Ask your English pal for some chips and see what you get. Answer: you’ll get French fries. That’s why we had a revolution because we couldn’t agree on nouns. Just kidding, didn’t you see “Hamilton”?
What Americans know as soccer originated long ago in China but was developed and formalized with rules by England. We didn’t use the same name as England because, well, we were upstarts.
Why is he called a quarterback?
Life is tricky and we all wish we could have do-overs. A player in the quarterback position is particularly wise. Because the quarterback more than anyone else on the team knows they can never get a game-quarter back.
Quarterbacks go back to the beginnings of football when they stood between the center and the halfback. They run and pass and hand off the football, and usually call the plays. They’re crucial to a team. That is likely why they’ve been Super Bowl MVPs more than any other position.
Remember the coolest kid in the cool kid’s clique at your school? That’s the QB.
What is the most popular Super Bowl snack?
The answer, according to The Daily Meal: Chicken Wings. Bird world has barely recovered from Thanksgiving and Christmas and along comes the Super Bowl.
Is there anyone who doesn’t like the Super Bowl?
Chickens.
What was the most-watched Super Bowl ever?
Answer: Super Bowl XLIX (49 for non-ancient-Romans) played in 2015.
It is also, to date, the most-watched network broadcast in United States television history.
Views for that Super Bowl were tagged at 114.44 million. That’s a lot of views, or just one crazed fan with a ridiculous number of TVs.
