10 Super Bowl Facts You May Not Know

Written by atom | February 2nd, 2012

With the Super Bowl being just over a week away, it’s time for all of the know-it-all fans to come out of the woodwork. Everyone knows at least one person like this; Never really played sports, usually fat, obnoxious, someone who is always referenced as just an acquaintance rather than an actual friend.

Well if you are like me, and enjoy having the power of knowledge over these types of people, here are a few quirky, somewhat stupid, Super Bowl facts that you can shove in their face. Now, if you would rather just tell these people to shut the f**k up, that is your prerogative as well.

Fact 1: 80 percent of all Super Bowl tickets sold go to corporate sponsors of the NFL and of the Super Bowl.

Fact 2: The first four Super Bowls were not actually called “Super Bowl.” The first two 10 Super Bowl Facts You May Not Know went by the title of “AFL-NFL World Championship Game.” Impressive, sure, but not nearly as iconic as “Super Bowl,” a term not used until the third game, between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts. This was the first game between the champions of the AFL and NFL won by a team (the Jets) from the upstart AFL. Their victory was followed a year later by that of the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, a game which many feel cemented the eventual merger between the two leagues.

Fact 3: One out of every 12 people watching the game only does so to see the commercials.

Fact 4: If you wanted to buy a ticket for Super Bowl I, you could have gotten in for only six bucks. The cheapest tickets for recent Super Bowl games have cost hundreds of dollars or more.

Fact 5: The Super Bowl is not good for worker productivity. On the Monday following 10 Super Bowl Facts You May Not Know the Super Bowl, an average of six percent of the workforce calls in sick. Is everyone faking? Not likely. Read Fact 6 for reasons why people just might be telling the truth.

Fact 6: While it might be bad for productivity, the Super Bowl is good for one thing: the antacid business. Typically, antacid sales increase 20 percent the day after the game. Maybe all those people really are sick after all.

Fact 7:There have been hundreds of people throughout the years who have won Super Bowls. And of those players, quite a few have gone on to be coaches. But did you know that out of that group, only three (Mike Ditka, Tom Flores and Tony Dungy) have won the Super Bowl as both player and coach?

Fact 8: While there are certainly teams that have had their fair share of success in the Super Bowl (the San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers have all won the Super Bowl five times), those victories are typically spread out over a number of years. The UCLA Bruins won seven NCAA basketball titles in a row, and the Boston Celtics won eight consecutive NBA titles. Don’t expect the same type of dominance in the NFL. In fact, the longest winning “streak” in the Super Bowl is two games.

Fact 9: Since the 1998-1999 season, the losing Super Bowl team has gone on to have a winning record the next season only once. In fact, aside from the 2006-2007 Seattle Seahawks, teams that have lost the Super Bowl since 1998 have seen their average records go from a 13-3 to a lowly 5-11 the next year.

Fact 10: If you feel a little bloated the day after the Super Bowl, it’s understandable. In America, Super Bowl Sunday is second in food consumption behind only Thanksgiving Day. How much food is gobbled down? How about an estimated 14,500 tons of chips, 4,000 tons of popcorn and 8 million pounds of guacamole? Is it any wonder so many people call in sick the next day?

These 10 facts were provided by LifeWhile.

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Tags: Facts, Super Bowl