10 Super Bowl Fun Facts

1. The New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons face each other in Super Bowl LI. The Patriots have been to the Super Bowl 9 times (an NFL record) and won 4. The Falcons have gone to the Super Bowl one time (this will be their second) and lost that game (Source).

2. Super Bowl VII held on January 14, 1973 had the lowest recorded Super Bowl score. The Miami Dolphins beat the Washington Redskins 14 to 7 (Source).

3.Nielsen reported over the last ten years (2004-2014) viewership has increased by 22.4 million. The most viewed games are from the last five years, surpassing the most watched program from February 1983 with 106 million viewers–the M*A*S*H finale. Super Bowl XLVIII brought in over 25.3 million tweets generated – between the game, Beyonce’s half-time show, and the ads (Source).

4. It costs more to air a 30-second commercial ($5 million)  than to host the Super Bowl (Source).

5. The average cost of a tickets to the first Super Bowl in 1967 was $12. However, the then called AFL-NFL World Championship Game couldn’t manage to sell out the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It’s still the only Super Bowl not to fill up its venue (Source).

6.The name “Super Bowl’’ was conceived by Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt during a planning meeting in 1966 for the inaugural game. When owners were stuck trying to think of what to call the game, Hunt suddenly remembered that two of his children were obsessed with a popular toy of the era, the Super Ball. That’s when he blurted out, “Let’s call it the “Super Bowl!’’’ and it gained instant approval (Source).

7.The first time a woman performed the coin flip came in 1981, with the widow of Packers coach Vince Lombardi, Marie Lombardi, doing the honors at SBXV  (Source).

8.The Super Bowl is the second most watched sporting event in the world. The first is soccer’s Champions League Final (Source).

9.Every year, more than 700,000 footballs are made for official NFL use. 72 of them are set aside for use during the Super Bowl (Source).

10.Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest day of the year for food consumption in the US. Thanksgiving is first (Source).