Friday Fun Facts About The Super Bowl

Tom EgelhoffPublished: January 31, 2014

NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 30: Confiscated counterfeit Super Bowl XLVIII merchandise is viewed at a news conference on the latest seizure of the merchandise leading up to the Super Bowl on January 30, 2014 in New York City. Officials from the National Football League, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection displayed recently confiscated items while also showing phony websites that have been set-up to sell Super Bowl XLVIII merchandise. Counterfeit sports merchandise, much of which originates in China, is a multi million dollar industry. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Super Bowl Sunday is nearly upon us. We have to prepare ourselves for the hype, endless pre-game shows, the pundits and their prognostications that are more often than not — wrong.

But Super Bowl Sunday is a national event. It’s the NFL’s version of Christmas with the biggest gift being the Lombardi Trophy that gives the winning team bragging rights that on this particular Sunday they were the best in the world.

Here’s some fun and interesting facts you might have missed leading up to the Big Show.

Fun Facts About The Super Bowl

What are the odds of winning the coin toss? In the 47 Super Bowls played thus far heads is the winner — 24 to 23.
Weather? Super Bowls have been played outdoors and in the North but this will be the first ever Super Bowl played outside in the north. Most previous games have been under domes or in warm weather areas of the country.
What if it snows? Met Life stadium has a snow-melting machine capable of melting 600 tons of snow per hour. Watch your snow cone. Sixteen hundred workers will also be on hand. Talk about job creation.
Mascot Trivia: The mascots for both teams were created within four months of each other back in 1999. Blitz is the mascot for the Seahawks and Miles for the Broncos.
City Population: Here’s a fact to amaze your friends. The populations of the two cities represented in the Super Bowl are nearly identical. 634,535 for Seattle and 634,265 for Denver.
Only 1 percent of the public will have a shot at a ticket. The two teams will get 35 percent of the tickets, the Giants and Jets (it’s their home field during the season) get about 6 percent, and the remaining 28 teams divvy up about 33 percent. Top face value of a ticket is $2,600. Scalpers get much more.
Denver leads in Super Bowl appearances having played in six while Seattle has only made the trip once before.
More job creation: In addition to the 1,600 workers at Met Life Stadium there will be 500 New Jersey State Police officers and over 2,000 members of the press.
Looking for a close game? It’s doubtful. Of the 46 games played so far only 15 were decided by seven points or less. There has never been an overtime or a shutout in any Super Bowl game.
Will It Snow? As luck would have it there’s a site for that. You can check in with willitsnow.com to get up to the second snow reports for Met Life Stadium.

Some Final Thoughts

It’s been said, that regardless of the odds, on any given Sunday any team can beat any other team. I don’t really have a dog in this hunt so I’m just going to enjoy the game from a football purist standpoint. I hope it’s a good entertaining game and would be nice if it were a close game.

But regardless of the outcome one undeniable fact is clear. The most talked about moments on Monday morning will be the commercials. Somebody pass me the Budweiser and Doritos.