Non-Football Fans probably know that the first Sunday of February is the day that the Super Bowl is played each year. The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL) and the culmination of the regular season which started in the summer of the previous year.
If you don’t follow football or sports in general, don’t fret. This article has you covered. Read the information below for the 2020 Super Bowl Guide For A Non-Football Fan:
The 2020 Super Bowl will be the 64th Super Bowl to ever take place. Super Bowl I took place on January 15th, 1967 at The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The Green Bay Packers beat The Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in Super Bowl I.
For non-football fans who are confused, each Super Bowl is referred to with Roman Numerals as an NFL Media Guide stated “The Roman numerals were adopted to clarify any confusion that may occur because the NFL Championship Game—the Super Bowl—is played in the year following a chronologically recorded season. Numerals I through IV were added later for the first four Super Bowls.” The only time a Super Bowl didn’t use Roman Numerals was for Super Bowl 50 in honor of the historic 50th Super Bowl.
These two things are information that every non-football fan should know. The Super Bowl is played on the first Sunday of February each year and Super Bowl XXXVI (held in 2002) was the first one to do so (mostly due to the 2001 NFL Season being postponed in the wake of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks). However, this tradition wouldn’t be firmly established until Super Bowl XXXVIII. The 2020 Super Bowl will be played on February 2nd, 2020.
Another thing that non-football fans to understand is that the location for every Super Bowl is selected years in advance so the host city (and venue) has enough time to prepare. Super LIV will be held at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Hard Rock Stadium is the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins, one of the NFL’s 32 teams.
Given the time that this guideline was written (November 2019), it is too early to know which two teams will be playing in The 2020 Super Bowl as NFL Playoffs don’t start until January 2020.
An NFL Game (regardless if it is a regular season game, playoff game, and/or The Super Bowl) is spilt into four quarters that are 15 minutes long each and a break for halftime after the first two quarters are played.
However, halftime is much longer for the Super Bowl due to the Halftime Show and to allow both teams more time to prepare and reset for the second half. In addition, the game won’t last just an hour as there are also timeouts, penalties, play reviews, etc. that can happen during the game.
As stated earlier in #3 (see above), non-football fans shouldn’t expect The Super Bowl to last only hour. Besides the commercials and everything listed in #3 that can cause the game to be delayed, another thing that causes the Super Bowl to be even longer is if the game goes into overtime.
From the 63 Super Bowl Games played so far, the game has only gone into overtime once (Super Bowl LI). For both football and non-football fans, the rules of overtime during Super Bowl are this: Each period of overtime lasts 10 minutes maximum. Each team gets two timeouts. There are no coaches’ challenges, with officials reviewing close plays. The first team to score a touchdown wins The Super Bowl!
Another aspect of The Super Bowl that non-football fans will look forward to is which famous singer will be performing the national anthem before kickoff. Given the time that this guideline was written (November 2019), the NFL has yet to announce who will be singing the National Anthem for Super Bowl LIV. The NFL usually announces the person or group who will do so in early January.
Singers and/or Bands who have previously sung the National Anthem at the Super Bowl include Backstreet Boys, Alicia Keys, Gladys Knight (who did so at Super Bowl LIII), and Whitney Houston, to name a few. The latter’s rendition is considered one of the greatest of all time (see the clip below).
Another part of the Super Bowl that non-football fans will enjoy the most during the Super Bowl is the halftime show. Each year, a singer or band with a huge impact on pop culture is selected to perform the halftime show of the Super Bowl, which helps draw more viewers for The Big Game.
Selected Headline performers perform melodies of some of their biggest hits. In addition, some of the selected headline acts for The Halftime Show invite other artists or groups to perform in the halftime show as a Special Guest. For Super Bowl LIV, the halftime show will be co-headlined by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira.
At the end of each Super Bowl, the winning team is presented with The Vince Lombardi Trophy. A lot of non-football fans reading this guideline might be wondering who the man that the Super Bowl Trophy is named after is.
Lombardi was the head coach of The Green Bay Packers during the 1960s and he lead the team to victories in the first two Super Bowl Games. Three years after winning Super Bowl II, the legendary coach suddenly passed away from cancer at the age of 57 on September 3rd, 1970.
In honor of Lombardi’s legacy, The NFL Super Bowl Trophy was renamed The Vince Lombardi Trophy and was presented for the first time under its new name in Super Bowl V when The Baltimore Colts defeated The Dallas Cowboys 16-13.
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