On Sunday in Las Vegas, the Kansas City Chiefs shall be seeking to win their second straight Lombardi Trophy, while a San Francisco 49ers victory would give the team its first Super Bowl. Since 1995when Steve Young was under the middle.
I didn't get a media day pass, so I didn't get a probability to ask Chiefs head coach Andy Reid how he's trending. His mustache.
But my colleagues and I were in a position to ask an all-pro lineup of students to jot down about a variety of football-related topics, from biased food distribution to the largest gambling bonanza in league history. to the numbers behind the
1. Flag, you might be
The Pro Bowl, the NFL's version of the All-Star Game, normally gets little attention. That's since it's the weekend before the Super Bowl — lots of the celebs who played in the massive game are absent — and players seem most concerned about avoiding injuries, avoiding winning games. come.
A 12 months ago, league officials decided to shake up the annual showcase. It will not be a game of tackle football. It will be a flag football match.. The pondering was that if the league's stars didn't need to tackle one another, they may play harder, be more prone to showcase their athleticism and, importantly, have more fun.
As West Virginia University sociologist Josh Woods points out, the NFL's promotion of flag football is a giant deal, especially for an emerging sport that is comparatively obscure outside of Florida, Georgia and New York, where About 80% of highschool flag football players stay. Its inclusion within the 2028 Summer Olympics will further boost its profile.
But Woods points to a gender divide and political divide that would cloud the game's future.
Mike Erman/Getty Images
2. X's, O's and Z's
In 2011, former NFL cornerback Sam Shields was a rookie playing for the Green Bay Packers team that made the Super Bowl. The night before the massive game, he tossed and turned.
“I used to get stomach aches when I used the bathroom, but I didn't need to use it,” He told Sports Illustrated in 2019. “It also felt like Christmas, you can't sleep when it's Christmas the next day.”
I've wondered if I'd get a probability to wink if I needed to pitch within the World Series. Something tells me I'll be rather a lot more like Shields. And as if the Chiefs and 49ers players and coaches aren't feeling the pressure enough, it seems that getting an excellent night's sleep is one of the necessary things a player can do before a giant game, meet or match.
University of Pittsburgh sleep medicine specialist Joanna Fong-Isaryawongsay highlights studies showing how a poor night's sleep affects performance and decision-making while making you more prone to get injured. .
In fact, she writes, “Sleep deprivation has been linked to decreased performance in every cognitive measure.”
3. Gambling
Did you bet on the 49ers to cover the spread? Maybe you might be. Playing squares. Or possibly you're betting on Reba McEntire's national anthem. Longer than 90.5 seconds.
If you've placed a bet on some aspect of the massive game, you're one in all the roughly 67 million American adults who've done so, in line with a Morning Consult survey conducted in early February. It will set one other recent record, breaking the 2023 record, which broke the 2022 mark. The country's gambling craze has been helped, partly, by a 2018 Supreme Court ruling. Overturned the federal ban on sports betting..
Gambling and the Super Bowl have at all times gone hand in hand. To Tom Oates, a sports media scholar on the University of Iowa, what makes the progress of the past few years so remarkable is the NFL's dramatic reversal in its attitudes toward betting.
Gone are the heady days of league officials lobbying Congress for restrictions and checkpoints. The NFL has gone all out in embracing its gambling. Creating multi-billion dollar partnerships With the highest sportsbooks within the country.
“But this infusion of additional cash comes with a substantial social cost,” Oates writes. “Gambling addiction is at an all-time high, likely fueled by the ease with which people can place bets from their phones.”
So if you desire to get in on the motion, gamble responsibly and don't let your emotions get the higher of you.
Saying this, a bit of bird told me that Reba Can really catch his notes..
Theo Wargo/Getty Images
4. At least they're not serving donkey meat.
Everything is politicized., so the lamentation goes. And even the Super Bowl— One of the few communal events left. In a polarized, atomized nation – sectarianism can't be avoided.
In recent years, among the country's hottest food brands – Bud Light, Therefore, Papa John's, Coca Cola, Chick-fil-A – has been excoriated by supporters on each side of the aisle.
So Food Spread can paint every Super Bowl party with a “Red Team,” “Blue Team” color.
“What you offer at your Super Bowl party, or what the host offers at an event you attend, can now be interpreted, or twisted, through a partisan lens,” political scientist Joshua J. Dyke and Shana Pearson-Merkowitz write.
One possible approach to bridge the divide: Unite in a bipartisan celebration of Taylor Swift. Actually, scratch it.
Maybe you possibly can just serve salmon—a food that, in line with research by Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz, is “resistant to biased cues.”
Serious times, indeed.
5. Bye Daddy
According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research poll22% of Americans who plan to observe the Super Bowl are most enthusiastic about promoting.
That's one in all the the reason why firms are willing to shell out a lot money for a coveted slot – US$7 million for a 30-second spot.
However, as Auburn University scholars Linda Farrell and OC Farrell indicate, many regulars on Super Bowl airwaves, corresponding to GoDaddy and Ford, are missing from this 12 months's lineup.
What gives?
“Gen Z, in particular, is unimpressed by Super Bowl advertising,” he writes, “and complicating matters is their disinterest in broadcast TV.”
So as a millennial who has spent years listening to how My generation has killed. Everything from paper napkins to mayonnaise, I take great pleasure in typing: Gen Z kills the Super Bowl ad.