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These Traditions Help To Make The Super Bowl The Best Sporting Event Of The Year
The Super Bowl is one of the most watched annual sporting events – people tune in from all over the world to see which players will be walking away with championship rings.
The first Super Bowl took place in 1967 after the merger of the AFL and the NFL into what we now know as the NFL. Over the next 56 years, the event developed a few traditions.
Somewhere inspired by iconic moments that just needed repeating – “I’m going to Disneyland” – while others were trialed and developed over many decades.
If betting at home is part of your own Super Bowl ritual – then you can find the best NFL odds here.
In today’s piece, we are going to look at 5 of the most iconic and interesting Super Bowl traditions that everyone should know about.
Tradition 1 – The HalfTime Show
Some of you may not be old enough to remember this, but the halftime show at the Super Bowl wasn’t always as show stopping as it is now.
When the Super Bowl first started, the halftime show was just like any other game – there would be some cheerleaders, a local marching band, and if the audience were really lucky there would be a children’s choir thrown in the mix.
It wasn’t until the early 90s that things started to change. We most likely have Micheal Jackson’s halftime show in 1993 to thank for the amazing lineups that we get now.
Since the show has shifted towards more of a concert we have been treated to memorable moments – left shark, Gaga jumping off the roof, and of course Nipplegate.
It seems almost impossible to think that the halftime show wasn’t always such a big deal.
Tradition 2 – The Gatorade Shower
If you like placing bets then this one might interest you.
One of the most common bets placed on Super Bowl Sunday is what color Gatorade will be poured on the winning coach. If you’re confused, let us explain.
In 2001, the Ravens dumped a cooler full of Gatorade over their coach to celebrate their domination over the New York Giants that year. The bright yellow color of the Gatorade made for a series of amazing photos and for the 21 years since the practice has mostly continued.
Some years the Gatorade has been replaced with water. And the Patriots’ head coach did not allow his team to do this to him at any of their 6 victories (boo!).
This year the Gatorade was blue, just in case you were wondering.
Tradition 3 – Using Roman Numerals To Name The Super Bowl
Anyone who spends any time writing about sport – particularly the Super Bowl will probably love the fact that the Super Bowl uses Roman numerals rather than a date. But people who look in from the outside of the football world might be a little confused.
Why do we love it? Well, without the Roman numeral system things get confusing. Super Bowl LVI took place in 2022 but was at the end of the 2021 season. Without the number, you should get some journalists calling it Super Bowl 2022 and some Super Bowl 2021.
When you’re still pretty close to the year, it can be easy to work out which event they were talking about based on the winner. But if we were trying to write about Super Bowl III and some people were calling it Super Bowl 1970 and some Super Bowl 1971 – it’s just too much work.
Using the Roman numeral system makes things so simple. We wish more sports would adopt this system.
Tradition 4 – Looking Back At The Start Of Season Odds
On Super Bowl weekend, people like to start reflecting on how much the bookies got right that year.
They like to take a look at what every team’s odds to win were at the start of the season and compare that to how they actually performed. We are really blessed that the NFL is a competitive league that is not completely ruled by money – so, it can be hard to predict who will take home the trophy.
Super Bowl LVI was a great example of this – no one had any idea that we were going to have a Rams team led by an ex-Lions quarterback taking on the Bengals in the Super Bowl.
This Super Bowl had no Brady, no Mahomes, and no Rodgers – we would have never guessed that.
Tradition 5 – The Curse Of The Host
The team that is going to host the Super Bowl is announced at the start of every year. At 55 out of 56 of the last Super Bowls, the host team has never made it to the Final and hasn’t played a home game.
Many joked that it was a curse, and it helped to make sure that no team had an unfair advantage. But it did mean that no fans ever got to see their team play the Super Bowl at home.
That was until the Tampa Bay Buccaneers broke the curse (temporarily) and played at a home Super Bowl LV – they also won it.
