Super Bowl Sunday

History of Super Bowl Sunday

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest events in American sports and is typically held on the first Sunday in February.

It is also one of the most-watched television events in the United States, with millions of viewers tuning in to watch the game, the halftime show, and the commercials. The winning team is awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

The first ever Super Bowl saw the Kansas City Chiefs go up against the Green Bay Packers on January 15, 1967.

Back then, the game was originally called the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” and was played as a matchup between the champions of the two professional football leagues at the time, which were the AFL (American Football League) and the NFL.

The Super Bowl has been played annually since 1967, with the exception of the strike-shortened 1982 season, when no official champion was crowned.

The game has been held on a Sunday in late January or early February every year since its inception, and it is now considered a national holiday in the United States, known as “Super Bowl Sunday.” The Super Bowl has become known for its halftime show and its expensive and highly coveted advertising slots.

Over the years there have been many memorable Super Bowl halftime shows, featuring a wide range of performers from different genres of music.

Facts About Super Bowl Sunday

Global Game Day Economics  

Independent economists find that the huge “windfalls” often advertised for Super Bowl host cities are overstated.

While host-commissioned studies have claimed local economic boosts of $300–400 million or even more than $1 billion, a peer‑reviewed analysis of income data by Robert Baade and Victor Matheson concluded that on average host cities actually experienced a reduction of about $133 million in personal income relative to expected trends, suggesting much of the spending simply replaces other local activity.

A De Facto Holiday Built on Consumption  

Sport historians describe Super Bowl Sunday as a new kind of American holiday created around conspicuous consumption rather than religion or civic ritual.

Research summarized by Penn State University notes that the day blends Thanksgiving-style feasting, Christmas-like commercialism, and Fourth of July patriotism into a nationwide media spectacle, making it a key lens for studying U.S. consumer culture and identity.  

From Modest Matchup to Record-Breaking TV Event

Television audiences for the championship game have grown from tens of millions in the 1970s to well over 100 million today, reshaping U.S. broadcasting.

Nielsen reported that Super Bowl LIX in 2025 averaged about 127.7 million viewers across television and streaming in the United States alone, making it the single most-watched TV broadcast in American history and cementing the game’s role as the country’s premier advertising platform.  

Why Halftime Feels So Long 

A standard NFL regular‑season halftime lasts about 12 minutes, but the championship game’s halftime typically stretches to around 25–30 minutes to allow for elaborate musical performances and extra commercial time.

Encyclopedic histories and analyses from Britannica note that this expansion from early marching‑band shows to full-scale pop concerts has turned halftime into its own global entertainment event, while also forcing teams to adjust routines around an unusually long midgame break.  

Overtime Rules Are Tougher in the Playoffs  

The NFL now uses different overtime procedures in the postseason than it does in the regular season, directly affecting how the championship can be decided.

Under rules detailed by NFL Football Operations, playoff games must produce a winner and since the 2022 postseason both teams are guaranteed at least one possession in overtime; only if the score remains tied after each has had the ball does sudden-death play resume, making late‑game strategy in the title contest more balanced than in typical regular‑season games.  

A Snack-Fueled Study in American Eating  

Cultural and historical scholarship portrays Super Bowl Sunday as one of the largest single days of food consumption in the United States, centered on highly processed “party foods.”

Analyses of the event in the Sport in American History project describe Thanksgiving‑style feasting built around pizza, chicken wings, chips, and dips as a core ritual, illustrating how the game has become a focal point for examining U.S. patterns of overeating and snack‑food marketing.  

Global Reach, But Not a Global Champion  

Despite frequent media claims that the game draws a billion viewers worldwide, audited ratings data show a more modest but still substantial international footprint.

An NFL report and Nielsen figures summarized by Statista put Super Bowl LVIII’s audience at about 123.7 million viewers in the U.S. and 62.5 million abroad—roughly 186 million in total—far below the 2022 FIFA World Cup final’s estimated 571 million average global live viewers, underscoring that the event is a dominant spectacle in the U.S. but only a secondary one globally.