Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:15 am
The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional football in the United States. The game culminates a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. Normally, roman numerals are used to identify each game, rather than the year in which it is held. For example, Super Bowl I was played on January 15, 1967, following the 1966 regular season. The single exception to this rule is Super Bowl 50, which is scheduled to be played on February 7, 2016, following the 2015 regular season.
The game was created as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League (AFL). It was agreed that the two leagues' champion teams would play in the AFL–NFL World Championship Game until the merger was to officially begin in 1970. After the merger, each league was redesignated as a "conference", and the game has since been played between the conference champions to determine the NFL's league champion. Currently, the National Football Conference (NFC) leads the league with 26 wins to 23 wins for the American Football Conference (AFC). The Pittsburgh Steelers hold the record for Super Bowl victories with six.
The day on which the Super Bowl is played, now considered by some an unofficial American national holiday,[1][2] is called "Super Bowl Sunday". It is the second-largest day for U.S. food consumption, after Thanksgiving Day.[3] In addition, the Super Bowl has frequently been the most-watched American television broadcast of the year; the four most-watched broadcasts in U.S. television history are Super Bowls.[4] In 2015, Super Bowl XLIX became the most-watched American television program in history with an average audience of 114.4 million viewers, the fifth time in six years the game had set a record, starting with the 2010 Super Bowl, which itself had taken over the number-one spot held for 27 years by the final episode of M*A*S*H.[5][6][7] The Super Bowl is also among the most-watched sporting events in the world, almost all audiences being North American, and is second to soccer's UEFA Champions League final as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide.
Ratings
Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014 had an average audience of 112.2 million viewers, the most watched telecast in U.S. history. Seattle Seahawks victory over Denver Broncos by a score of 43 to 8, it was the most lopsided Super Bowl score in 21 years. Five of the past seven Super Bowls have been decided by a touchdown or less. (Nielsen)
The last five Super Bowls have been the five most watched telecasts in U.S. television history, prior to that the most watched telecast was the M*A*S*H finale in February 1983 with 106 million viewers. (Nielsen)
Despite all the tuning sources now available, the audience for the Super Bowl has increased 22.4 million viewers over the past ten years 2004-2014. (Nielsen)
Females accounted for 46.8% of the Super Bowl audience last year. The average audience for females was a record high 52.6 million. By comparison, The Oscars last year had 43.7 million TOTAL viewers. This was the fourth straight year the Super Bowl had averaged over 50 million female viewers. During the regular NFL season about one-third of the viewing audience is female. (Nielsen)
The median age of The Super Bowl viewer in 2014 was 43.7, a slight increase from the previous year 43.5. (Nielsen)
The program lead-outs to last year’s Super Bowl on Fox last year was New Girl with 26.3 million viewers and Brooklyn Nine Nine 15.1 million. The most watched Super Bowl lead-out was Friends in 1996 on NBC, the telecast averaged 52.9 million viewers and guest starred Brooke Shields. (Nielsen)
According to Superbowlbets.com, you will not be alone as an estimated $10 billion will be wagered, spread among 200 million bettors across the globe.
Most bets take place in informal pools outside of the Las Vegas books, but Vegas is not hurting for Super Bowl business. Last year’s Super Bowl brought in $115.9 million in wagers and $3.2 million in profits to the Vegas books — down considerably from Super Bowl XLVIII’s record of $19.7 million in profits on $119 million in bets. The goal-line interception by Malcolm Butler of the Patriots literally cost the Vegas books millions in profits.