NFL Explained is a production of the NFL in partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to NFL Explained, a production of the NFL in partnership with I Heart Radio. Up Work is the world's work marketplace. Empower your business and hire the world's most in demand developers, designers, project managers and more at www dot up work dot com. America's most reliable network is going ultra with Verizon five G Ultra wide ban and more and more places with up to ten times faster speeds. You can download a movie in mere minutes. What Yes, Verizon is going Ultra so you can to five G Ultra wide ban available in select areas. Most reliable based on rankings from the Root Metrics US ROOTS Score report dated first half, excluding c ban and not specific to five G networks. Your results may vary. Not an endorsement speed comparison to media. Verizon four G LTE speeds downloads vary based on network conditions and five G content optimization. We are knocking on the door Englewood, California, the City of Champions, will crown an NFL champion when it hosts Super Bowl fifty six and SO five Stadium. In fact, it will be the second consecutive year that a team is actually going to play on its home turf, with the Rams welcoming in the Bengals. So, of course, here on the NFL Explaining podcasts, we're talking the Super Bowl, gutting you through all of the lesser known facts about the big Game, and of course always joined by my good friend at ded Kinka Walla. Hi, I'm so excited. This is why you know this is Look, Joe Burrow said it a few weeks ago, this is why you work so hard. You work to get to these moments. And we're at that moment. Mike, we are, we are. Do you have a favorite memory? Oh, Mike, that that is like asking do I have a favorite child. It feels as if every Super Bowl story has something special to it. But you know what, I'll give you one. I was a writer at the Wall Street Journal. I was covering the Giants and the Giants at the time. As you know, we're coached by Tom Coughlin, who was about as strict as they got. A few were five minutes early. You were late. You had to make sure that your feet were on the floor in a certain way. When you were in a meeting room, so Tom Coughlin didn't often show the personal side of him. Well, the Giants upset the Patriots for the second time in four years in Indianapolis. I go down to the field and I see Judy Coughlin, Mrs Cofflin, Tom Coflin's wife, who is truly, genuinely one of the warmest human beings on the planet. And Judy Coflin sees me and she spreads out her arms and she gives me this really big hug, and what are you gonna do? Of course you're gonna hug Judy Coflin. She's about as happy as can be. And then right next to her is Tom Coughlin, strict, tough Tom Coughlin, who takes no prisoners, and he sees me, and Mike Key goes to hug me. And I think that it's such a personal thing. It's such a personal journey. And the Super Bowl for fans maybe about commercials and bingo boxes and things like that, But for these men and women who are parts of organizations, who give every single ounce of their blood, sweat and tears to get to this moment, it's as personal as it can be. It's as personal of a journey. It's as magical as anything that I get to be a part of. You're right. I mean, it's the pinnacle and it's memories, a d D for a lifetime for the players, the fans, the coaches, a fan base, you know, like the Bengals for example, locking on the door like they are. You know, there's generations of fans that just haven't seen this before. So it really is pretty cool. Well, you know, and I think that that's what makes this episode so tremendous is that we could sit here and we could talk about, you know, the Philly Special, which I was present for, we could talk about the helmet catch or all of that. But instead we're going to take you through the origin story of the game itself, which really is fascinating, Mike, and we'll try to, as we like to do, give some fun facts that are tangential to the game that proved just how big it's really become. So should we start at the beginning, Mike, Yeah, let's kick it off, all right. The National Football League has been around since nineteen twenty and in the late nineteen fifties there was a young Dallas businessman named Lamar Hunt who wanted nothing else but to own an NFL franchise. So, with the league's rising popularity and household names like Jim Brown and Johnny Unitis, owning a team seemed obviously, like I said, the opportunity of a lifetime. Unfortunately, after multiple attempts Lamar Hunt could not buy a franchise, so he came up with a different plan. He gathered a group of wealthy businessmen who also would have liked to buy an NFL club, and he created a rival pro football league. And this collection of men, who would be nicknamed the Foolish Club, still started their own league, and they called it the a f L, the American Football League. So, all of a sudden, Mike the NFL had legitimate competition in stadium attendance and TV rights, in the draft, and of course in signing star players. Hunt and the a f made such a substantial impact that by nineteen sixty six, the two leagues agreed to merge, and in June of nineteen sixty six, they agreed that their respective champions would play in an annual season ending championship game. Why not, right The first couple of years the game was actually called the a f L NFL World championship games, so we now retroactively called those super Bowl one and two, but it wasn't until a DD year number three that the game officially became known as the Super Bowl. It was actually Hunt who jokingly pitched the name super Bowl based off of the children's toy super Ball, which I actually looked up. They don't necessarily make them anymore. There's some iterations of it, but besides the point, and it was his daughter's toy that prompted the idea about bouncing rubber ball, just getting it done. So it really is a huge watershed moment for the a f L, who opened to that point it was really seen as the lesser league than the NFL. You got Broadway Joe Joe Namath leading the Jets to a monumental upset, putting the a f L on the map. Super Bowl now it's often running and we got to mention that Hunts Kansas City Chiefs actually won Super Bowl number four in the final season of the a f L versus the NFL, and with the league's finally fully officially merging by nineteen seventy, I think it's a good time to kind of turn and let's talk about how the road to the Super Bowl has evolved. By the merger, there were eight teams that qualified for the playoffs, so you needed to win a divisional game and a championship game to reach the super Bowl. That stayed intact until nineteen seventy eight, when the league added one wild card team per conference, so the winner of each wild card game slid into the eight team playoff bracket. In nineteen nine, the playoff field expanded to twelve teams, adding a third wild card team to each conference, and unless you were one of the four squads with the first round by, under that format, you need to win three games before reaching the Super Bowl. And then this past season one was the first year that we had a fourteen team playoff, so the number one seed, the top seed, got that by, but everybody else had to play. And here's one little cute fun fact. Since the NFL started seeding teams for the postseason, which of course was in ninet, every single Super Bowl Mike has featured at least one team that was either a number one or number two seed. Until this year, the Bengals and the Rams are both four seeds. Still feel good about the cream rising to the top. Yeah, but you know what's so funny you say that, But I'll tell you this. In the a f C, the Titans were the one seed. I don't know that I would say that they were the cream. I definitely came into the playoffs thinking that the Bengals were the most complete football team. And here we are knocking on the door for another Super Bowl champion, who hopefully maybe Cincinnati fans are definitely hoping that this would be the case that they got that Lombardi Trophy. And I think the hardware is one of those things that we all focus in on, and it actually is Tiffany made so. Tiffany and Company Vice president Oscar Reidner actually drew the design of the original Super Bowl trophy on a cocktail napkin who says good things don't happening bars. Originally called the World Championship Game Trophy, it was renamed the Lombardi Trophy in V one following the coaches death. Now weighs seven pounds, which clearly is light enough to toss from one party boat to another, potentially creating a little bit of havoc at least some tense moments. But since super Bowl number one, the winning team is actually received permanent possession of a sterling silver trophy created by Tiffany and Company. It doesn't come in that little Tiffany green box though green. That's blue. Clearly you're not buying a lot of Tiffany. No, no, no, all right, Well, let's go back to Super Bowl one between the Packers and the Chiefs for a minute, because I think there are a few interesting things to note and it'll show to Mike how far we've come. So super Bowls in l A this year. That first Super Bowl was indeed at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Now, the attendance was just under six It would be the only Super Bowl not played during a pandemic that has not been at full capacity. And because there were separate TV deals for the a f L and the NFL, the Super Bowl was actually simulcast on both NBC and CBS, and it wasn't until Super Bowl seventeen that the game was actually broadcast all around the planet. Today, the game is broadcasting over one hundred and eighty countries. It's in twenty five different languages. But it's really truly crazy about the first game is that most of the world never even saw footage of Super Bowl one, because following the game, both TV stations scrubbed their tapes so they could be reused. Thank goodness for NFL Films, which also had cameras at the game. They were eventually able to piece together all of the footage that they got, and in two thousand sixteen, Super Bowl One was indeed reaired. I can't believe it. They just couldn't download it from the cloud. Alright, Mike, how about this one? Do you have any idea who the first halftime show was? What? We got? Marching bands, marching bands from the University of Arizona and Grambling Stade, bear Down, here we Go, and trumpeter l Hurt. There were also three hundred pigeons and ten thousand balloons. So I don't know how any of this really actually compares to Flying Lady Gaga, who came in from the top of Energy Stadium, and as we know, there was all sorts of anxiety about the roof being open and closed and how could she get in and all of that. But that first Super Bowl did have a flying demonstration by the Bell Rocket Airman. They flew hydrogen peroxide propelled jet packs around the stadium. Something tells me we'll get a little more flare with Dr Trey in the Super Bowl celebration. That's what my gut's telling me. But at the end of the day, the Packers players, by the way, they earned a fifteen thousand dollars. That was the bonus for winning the game. The Chiefs earned seventy dollars each. Now this year's winning players collect ten times that amount. Cool one fifty for the winners, k for the losers. Not too bad. A little extra incentive to go and winning that Super Bowl. But now that we schooled John the history of the Big Game, when we come back, we'll dive into even more fun facts about the Super Bowl. I bet you have no idea how the phrase I'm going to Disney World came about and which NFL player was the first to cash in for saying it following the win. That's still become on NFL explain build the team that will build your business. With Upwork, you can find top developers, designers, project managers and more who can start today so your business can succeed tomorrow higher at home or in a hundred and eighty countries around the world. To find the right talent for whatever your business needs. Up Work the World Work Marketplace. Learn more at www dot up work dot com. America's most reliable network is going ultra with Verizon five G Ultra wide band and more and more places, so you can do more with up the ten times faster speeds. 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Back here on NFL, explained Toddie Kinkaballa and Mike yam with you and we're trying to make you smart for all your Super Bowl parties. So before we actually got to the Britak we mentioned that phrase and Indedia, it's one that I'm you probably hear from your kids relatively frequently, where it's probably I want to go to Disney World. Um, but I'm going to Disney World, which we've seen so many times super Bowl m v p s. They say it all the time after a game. It's sort of one of those fun little catchphrases. Well, I know you're wondering, like, where did this thing actually come about? Well, former CEO Michael Eisner from Disney and his wife, they were having dinner with Dick Rutan and Gina Yeager, the first pilot to circle the world without refueling. When they asked him what they planned to do next, they replied, well, We're going to Disney World. Eisner's wife thought it would make a great ad campaign and the phrase was born. So Phil Simms actually the first to say it after he was named m v P of the nineteen eight seven Super Bowl. He was paid seventy five K to say that. That is Look, I'd say that's good money. In hell, I'll say that's great money even nowadays. A d D I'll take for sure. I would not only take it for that, but my kids would love it if I said, well, we're going to Disney World. But you know what Phil Simms was m v P. So let's talk about the m v ps for a second. The position that has earned the most m v P honors is totally unsurprisingly, quarterbacks. There have been thirty one quarterbacks named m v P of the Super Bowl Most, Mike, can you guess which quarterback has been named Super Bowl m v P the most. There's one guy in particular who just decided that he doesn't want to play anymore. And you and I have been convinced he had twenty more good season still left that we wanted that so it would make us feel young. Yes, we did want that. Tom Brady, you are correct. Tom Brady has four and Joe Montana has three Super Bowl m v P s. I'll tell you this. I was actually talking to a running back who is going to be playing in this game, and we were talking about the Super Bowl m v P. I think that he would be pleased to know that running backs have actually been named the Super Bowl MVP seven times. Wide receivers have also been named Super Bowl m v P seven times. Only one time in the history of the Super Bowl was a returner named the m v P. But that was Dustin Howard in Super Bowl thirty one. And you know what, he had two dred and forty four all purpose yards and he had a ninety nine yard kickoff return touchdown. Seems pretty uh m v P worthy to me, don't you think? Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, those big players are the ones that sort of stand out the most. I think, what's sort of cool for anyone who gets to see those moments in person? Are once again, did you circling back to the top of the show, the memories that you have surrounding some of those games. And there's some fans lucky enough to score some tickets for that first Super Bowl, remember super Bowl number one. Guess how much twelve bucks to see the Packers and the Chiefs, which I get it. You're like, oh, it's only twelve dollars, Well, it's really like a hundred dollars when you consider inflation in the year two, but there's been some significant price increases. Fans. You went to the Super Bowl back in twenty they paid an average of seven thousand dollars to see the Chiefs and the Niners in that game saw more than sixty two thousand fans at hard Rock Stadium in Miami. That was well short of the largest crowd in Super Bowl history. Five largest crowds in the history of the game all played yes at the Rolls Bowl in Pasadena. I was actually just there the other week for the NFL p A Collegiate Bowl, but the top three saw attendance over one hundred and three thousand. The Rolls Bowl has yet to host another game, but the largest attendance for a non Rolls Bowl game super Bowl forty five at Jerry's World, which welcomed in over nine thousand fans. That's a whole lot of beverages and hot dogs to be able to serve at those stadiums. Well, most folks will actually be watching from the comfort of their home Smike, and let's just say that the ratings for the Super Bowl have been robust for quite some time. According to Nielsen figure, super Bowl fifty one between the Pats and the Falcons is the single most watch television program of all time. One hundred and seventy two million viewers watch that twenty eight to three comeback. In fact, Mike, the most viewed TV programs of all time are all Super Bowl games. The Mash finale was the most watched TV broadcast until that record was broken by Super Bowl forty four. That was the Saints and the Colts. They brought in a hundred and six point five million viewers. All right, let's talk about what happens when you're watching at home, which I know that I don't really get to do that much, and I'm very very grateful that I don't. But if you are watching at home, or if you're at a Super Bowl party, you have to have good food and drink, right, because apparently Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest eating day of the year, behind only Thanksgiving. The estimate of what is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday, Mike, one point four billion chicken wings, one point three billion dollars spent on beer. Might change this here, there might be more hard Seltzer consumed. Maybe I don't know. Three A hard Seltzer guy beverage of choice. No, I'm more of a wine guy and occasionally a beer drinker. So and you drink wine even when watching a football game, Yeah, I have no shame. I own it. I can't say that I've drank wine on Super Bowl Sunday. All right, But what else do we think of when we besides amusing football and huge pageantry and the halftime show and food, come on commercials, commercials, commercials. Commercials. Of course, that's what makes a Super Bowl broadcast so enticing to people who love the Bowl and people who are more passive observers the commercials. So the cost of a thirty second ad for Super Bowl one was seven was in five hundred dollars. Today that would be three hundred thousand dollars. And you know what, that would be a bargain, Mike, because right now NBC is selling thirty second spots for the Super Bowl for wait fat, wait ferat wait for it six point five million dollars. And since we're talking advertising, we should mention that the National Football League takes a Super Bowl trademark very very seriously. So using Super Bowl to draw attention to your business is a violation of trademark rights. Which is why I like when we keep hearing about all these sales. Right now, it's called the big game as opposed to a Super Bowl sale. This podcast is sponsored by Kindrel. Kindrel Designs builds, manages, and modernizes the mission critical technology systems that the world depends on every day. Working side by side with their customers, they imagine things differently by forging new strategic partnerships, they unlock new possibilities, creating a world powered by healthy digital systems, a live with opportunity, oxygen to innovation, and energy to change the world. Kindrel The Heart of Progress. Kindrel Designs builds, manages, and modernizes the mission critical technology systems that the world depends on every day. Working side by side with their customers, they imagine things differently by forging new strategic partnerships. They unlock new possibilities, creating a world power by healthy digital systems, alive with opportunity, oxygen to innovation, and energy to change the world. Kindrel the Heart of Progress. Back here on NFL explained did you let's continue to talk about the cash because you threw out some big figures when it comes to the commercials, but more specifically the amount bet on Super Bowl games. One hundred and thirty six million was wagered in Vegas on Super Bowl fifty five. The record was a hundred fifty eight million who bet on the Patriots Eagle Super Bowl back in but Vegas claims that was only around one percent of those wagers. Ash says the heavy favorite was the Patriots. But while we're on the subject, a couple of little fun facts that might help you, just in case you're thinking about placing a wager this year. The winner of the coin toss has actually lost the last seven Super Bowls. The team that scores first thirty six and nineteen. And teams wearing and I love this white jerseys have won fourteen of the last seventeen Super Bowls. And the Bengals just announced that they're going to be wearing black jerseys and white pants. But you know, they lost the coin toss in the a f C Championship game and they still won the a f C. So maybe it's a year for bucking trends. I don't know. That's a nice little factory by d Well from white jerseys to the White House. The Steelers were actually the first team to visit the President after winning a Super Bowl in nineteen eighty when Jimmy Carter told them to come on down. And then after Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan made it a very regular occurrence. You know what else happened in the nineteen eighties, Mike. It was the first song dedicated to reaching the title game. It was the eighty five Bears, and they put together a little dance called the Super Bowl Shuffle, and it was a little bit cringe worthy, but it was nominated for a Grammy. That's not a joke, like it's legit, it's true. I'll tell you this. Chicago's defense was not a joke either that year, because they put together a blowout win of the Patriots in Super Bowl twenty. And since we're talking about the shuffle, I should mention that I did just hang out with Ikey Woods, who made the Icky shuffle very famous. See that transition right there. I'll take that famous Bengals alum who was very, very excited and handled the trophy presentation at the a f C Championship Game. So let's move on, Mike. I've hit you with some fun facts off the field. Let's go through some of the more interesting records on the field. How many players, Mike, do you believe have won back to back Super Bowls with different teams? Oh, the different team I was gonna say that. I think there's probably a fair amount that have won back to back titles, but the different team situation, and that's got to be a pretty exclusive list. I'd say less than ten. Less than ten is correct. There have been seven Ken Norton Jr. Dan Sanders, Derick Martin, Brandon Browner, Chris Long, Lagary Blunt, and Lashawn McCoy. Yeah. Well, Tom Brady has obviously a lot of Super Bowl wins and a ton of those records. And since he just called it a career a d D, you and I said we would dedicate like multiple podcast to him. But at least in the super Bowl deal will give him a whole section to himself. He's the only player to win Super Bowl over the span of three decades that one. I think it's almost fair to say that one might not get touched. His seven Super Bowl wins are more than twenty seven franchises have in terms of appearances. The teams with at least seven appearances the Pats, the Cowboys, the Steelers, the Broncos, and the Niners and he has more than two times the amount of passing yards in Super Bowls as the next quarterback are good friend, and if you missed his episode when he popped out with us, encourage you to go back. But our buddy Kurt Warner. Yeah, now, Britty of Chris has ten Super Bowl appearances though, but do you want to know the most consecutive appearances in a Super Bowl. That would go to quarterback Gail Gilbert, who had five. He was a backup for the Bills on their run of four consecutive losses in the early nineteen nineties, those Jim Kelly teams, of course, and then he joined the Chargers just in time to be destroyed by the Niners in the Super Bowl. Alright. The longest play in the Super Bowl a kickoff return. It was a touchdown to Kobe Jones Super Bowl forty seven. The fewest completions by a quarterback in a Super Bowl win Bob Greasy Miami six, only throughout seven times in Super Bowl eight against Minnesota. The most rushing yards in the game, How about this one? Timmy Smith had two hundred and four yards in Washington's win over Denver in Super Bowl. Smith would go on to rush for only six hundred and two yards his entire career. Way to show up in the big Game. I'll take it. Yeah, seriously, right, Okay? Since the nineteen seventies season, only four teams have won the Super Bowl without playing a home game in the playoffs. That would be the two five Steelers, the two seven Shiants, ten Packers, and the twenty twenty Tampa Bay Bucks, although Tampa did actually get to play the Super Bowl in its home stadium, which is what the Rams are getting to do. Although the Rams are officially the away team in the Super Bowl, which is just weird. By the way, don't you think it's what it is? It's the a f C S turn. Well, I think they're going to get to use their own locker room and the Bengals will use the Chargers locker room. That's my best bet. I would hope that that would be the case, all right, Mike, Another trivia question for you, how many men have won a Super Bowl as both a coach and a player? I only no one that I can think of, and that's Tony Dungee. You are correct, But joining Tony Dungee are Tom Flores, Mike Ditka, and Doug Peterson. Oh, that's once again a pretty exclusive list. All right, We'll leave you with a couple more factoroids about this year's Super Bowl between Cincinnati and l A. Sean McVeigh love the young guys. Thirty six years and twenty days as of Super Bowl Sunday, by the way, will have made the two youngest appearances as a head coach in Super Bowl history and is the youngest head coach in multiple Super Bowls to be able to coach in that game. Now, McVeigh can also become the youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl. Zach Taylor, by the way, can become the second youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl game. You know when you see that, Mike, when you see this is the first Super Bowl being coached by two men under the age of forty stab talk about feeling old. I'm kind of with you a little bit, But it does, you know, look, I mean, in a lot of ways, is it? It also screams to their ability to connect with a lot of their players to have this much success. So kudos to both of those guys. Yeah, and let's talk a little bit more about the Bengals, because three years in a row. Prior to this year, they finished last in their division and that's been done exactly once before by the Bengals in nineteen eight one. And speaking of age a d D. Since you threw it out there, how about we go on the other side of the spectrum. I know we talked about Brady and gave him a lot of love the Rams. Andrew Whitworth started a hundred and sixty four games for the Bengals from two thousand six to be the oldest offensive lineman to start in the Super Bowl in NFL history at forty years and sixty three days. And it is awesome that he's healthy because I know he's been banged up at the end of the season. So once again, I think is all of us are kind of focused in on this next Super Bowl. I know we've covered the commercials and the halftime shows, but I think a DD we're going to not only get in amazing football game, but we're also going to get what I'm going to call the greatest halftime show of all time. I don't think there's anyone more excited than me. I'm super, super, super excited obviously for the product on the field. Can't wait to be out there. But yes, halftime show, there is no sense of who is this, what's happening? I mean, the league's teaser on the halftime show. The two minute video that we watched on Twitter got me going, I can't wait, I can't wait. I'm with you. Look, I think at the end of the day, we're all expecting a ton of fanfare. It's kind of cool for us to go through some of these records and some of these cool little factoids for the game. And I hope some of our listeners who have been checking out this podcast continue to not only check out our previous ones to learn a little bit more, but they watched this year's Super Bowl through a different lens. Um Totally with you, Mike, and Hey, everybody thinks as always, that is the Super Bowl Explain brought to you by up work, where you can build the team that will build your business. Learn more at upwork dot Com. 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NFL Explained is a production of the NFL in partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to NFL Explained, a production of the NFL in partnership with I Heart Radio. Up Work is the world's work marketplace. Empower your business and hire the world's most in demand developers, designers, project managers and more at www dot up work dot com. America's most reliable network is going ultra with Verizon five G Ultra wide ban and more and more places with up to ten times faster speeds. You can download a movie in mere minutes. What Yes, Verizon is going Ultra so you can to five G Ultra wide ban available in select areas. Most reliable based on rankings from the Root Metrics US ROOTS Score report dated first half, excluding c ban and not specific to five G networks. Your results may vary. Not an endorsement speed comparison to media. Verizon four G LTE speeds downloads vary based on network conditions and five G content optimization. We are knocking on the door Englewood, California, the City of Champions, will crown an NFL champion when it hosts Super Bowl fifty six and SO five Stadium. In fact, it will be the second consecutive year that a team is actually going to play on its home turf, with the Rams welcoming in the Bengals. So, of course, here on the NFL Explaining podcasts, we're talking the Super Bowl, gutting you through all of the lesser known facts about the big Game, and of course always joined by my good friend at ded Kinka Walla. Hi, I'm so excited. This is why you know this is Look, Joe Burrow said it a few weeks ago, this is why you work so hard. You work to get to these moments. And we're at that moment. Mike, we are, we are. Do you have a favorite memory? Oh, Mike, that that is like asking do I have a favorite child. It feels as if every Super Bowl story has something special to it. But you know what, I'll give you one. I was a writer at the Wall Street Journal. I was covering the Giants and the Giants at the time. As you know, we're coached by Tom Coughlin, who was about as strict as they got. A few were five minutes early. You were late. You had to make sure that your feet were on the floor in a certain way. When you were in a meeting room, so Tom Coughlin didn't often show the personal side of him. Well, the Giants upset the Patriots for the second time in four years in Indianapolis. I go down to the field and I see Judy Coughlin, Mrs Cofflin, Tom Coflin's wife, who is truly, genuinely one of the warmest human beings on the planet. And Judy Coflin sees me and she spreads out her arms and she gives me this really big hug, and what are you gonna do? Of course you're gonna hug Judy Coflin. She's about as happy as can be. And then right next to her is Tom Coughlin, strict, tough Tom Coughlin, who takes no prisoners, and he sees me, and Mike Key goes to hug me. And I think that it's such a personal thing. It's such a personal journey. And the Super Bowl for fans maybe about commercials and bingo boxes and things like that, But for these men and women who are parts of organizations, who give every single ounce of their blood, sweat and tears to get to this moment, it's as personal as it can be. It's as personal of a journey. It's as magical as anything that I get to be a part of. You're right. I mean, it's the pinnacle and it's memories, a d D for a lifetime for the players, the fans, the coaches, a fan base, you know, like the Bengals for example, locking on the door like they are. You know, there's generations of fans that just haven't seen this before. So it really is pretty cool. Well, you know, and I think that that's what makes this episode so tremendous is that we could sit here and we could talk about, you know, the Philly Special, which I was present for, we could talk about the helmet catch or all of that. But instead we're going to take you through the origin story of the game itself, which really is fascinating, Mike, and we'll try to, as we like to do, give some fun facts that are tangential to the game that proved just how big it's really become. So should we start at the beginning, Mike, Yeah, let's kick it off, all right. The National Football League has been around since nineteen twenty and in the late nineteen fifties there was a young Dallas businessman named Lamar Hunt who wanted nothing else but to own an NFL franchise. So, with the league's rising popularity and household names like Jim Brown and Johnny Unitis, owning a team seemed obviously, like I said, the opportunity of a lifetime. Unfortunately, after multiple attempts Lamar Hunt could not buy a franchise, so he came up with a different plan. He gathered a group of wealthy businessmen who also would have liked to buy an NFL club, and he created a rival pro football league. And this collection of men, who would be nicknamed the Foolish Club, still started their own league, and they called it the a f L, the American Football League. So, all of a sudden, Mike the NFL had legitimate competition in stadium attendance and TV rights, in the draft, and of course in signing star players. Hunt and the a f made such a substantial impact that by nineteen sixty six, the two leagues agreed to merge, and in June of nineteen sixty six, they agreed that their respective champions would play in an annual season ending championship game. Why not, right The first couple of years the game was actually called the a f L NFL World championship games, so we now retroactively called those super Bowl one and two, but it wasn't until a DD year number three that the game officially became known as the Super Bowl. It was actually Hunt who jokingly pitched the name super Bowl based off of the children's toy super Ball, which I actually looked up. They don't necessarily make them anymore. There's some iterations of it, but besides the point, and it was his daughter's toy that prompted the idea about bouncing rubber ball, just getting it done. So it really is a huge watershed moment for the a f L, who opened to that point it was really seen as the lesser league than the NFL. You got Broadway Joe Joe Namath leading the Jets to a monumental upset, putting the a f L on the map. Super Bowl now it's often running and we got to mention that Hunts Kansas City Chiefs actually won Super Bowl number four in the final season of the a f L versus the NFL, and with the league's finally fully officially merging by nineteen seventy, I think it's a good time to kind of turn and let's talk about how the road to the Super Bowl has evolved. By the merger, there were eight teams that qualified for the playoffs, so you needed to win a divisional game and a championship game to reach the super Bowl. That stayed intact until nineteen seventy eight, when the league added one wild card team per conference, so the winner of each wild card game slid into the eight team playoff bracket. In nineteen nine, the playoff field expanded to twelve teams, adding a third wild card team to each conference, and unless you were one of the four squads with the first round by, under that format, you need to win three games before reaching the Super Bowl. And then this past season one was the first year that we had a fourteen team playoff, so the number one seed, the top seed, got that by, but everybody else had to play. And here's one little cute fun fact. Since the NFL started seeding teams for the postseason, which of course was in ninet, every single Super Bowl Mike has featured at least one team that was either a number one or number two seed. Until this year, the Bengals and the Rams are both four seeds. Still feel good about the cream rising to the top. Yeah, but you know what's so funny you say that, But I'll tell you this. In the a f C, the Titans were the one seed. I don't know that I would say that they were the cream. I definitely came into the playoffs thinking that the Bengals were the most complete football team. And here we are knocking on the door for another Super Bowl champion, who hopefully maybe Cincinnati fans are definitely hoping that this would be the case that they got that Lombardi Trophy. And I think the hardware is one of those things that we all focus in on, and it actually is Tiffany made so. Tiffany and Company Vice president Oscar Reidner actually drew the design of the original Super Bowl trophy on a cocktail napkin who says good things don't happening bars. Originally called the World Championship Game Trophy, it was renamed the Lombardi Trophy in V one following the coaches death. Now weighs seven pounds, which clearly is light enough to toss from one party boat to another, potentially creating a little bit of havoc at least some tense moments. But since super Bowl number one, the winning team is actually received permanent possession of a sterling silver trophy created by Tiffany and Company. It doesn't come in that little Tiffany green box though green. That's blue. Clearly you're not buying a lot of Tiffany. No, no, no, all right, Well, let's go back to Super Bowl one between the Packers and the Chiefs for a minute, because I think there are a few interesting things to note and it'll show to Mike how far we've come. So super Bowls in l A this year. That first Super Bowl was indeed at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Now, the attendance was just under six It would be the only Super Bowl not played during a pandemic that has not been at full capacity. And because there were separate TV deals for the a f L and the NFL, the Super Bowl was actually simulcast on both NBC and CBS, and it wasn't until Super Bowl seventeen that the game was actually broadcast all around the planet. Today, the game is broadcasting over one hundred and eighty countries. It's in twenty five different languages. But it's really truly crazy about the first game is that most of the world never even saw footage of Super Bowl one, because following the game, both TV stations scrubbed their tapes so they could be reused. Thank goodness for NFL Films, which also had cameras at the game. They were eventually able to piece together all of the footage that they got, and in two thousand sixteen, Super Bowl One was indeed reaired. I can't believe it. They just couldn't download it from the cloud. Alright, Mike, how about this one? Do you have any idea who the first halftime show was? What? We got? Marching bands, marching bands from the University of Arizona and Grambling Stade, bear Down, here we Go, and trumpeter l Hurt. There were also three hundred pigeons and ten thousand balloons. So I don't know how any of this really actually compares to Flying Lady Gaga, who came in from the top of Energy Stadium, and as we know, there was all sorts of anxiety about the roof being open and closed and how could she get in and all of that. But that first Super Bowl did have a flying demonstration by the Bell Rocket Airman. They flew hydrogen peroxide propelled jet packs around the stadium. Something tells me we'll get a little more flare with Dr Trey in the Super Bowl celebration. That's what my gut's telling me. But at the end of the day, the Packers players, by the way, they earned a fifteen thousand dollars. That was the bonus for winning the game. The Chiefs earned seventy dollars each. Now this year's winning players collect ten times that amount. Cool one fifty for the winners, k for the losers. Not too bad. A little extra incentive to go and winning that Super Bowl. But now that we schooled John the history of the Big Game, when we come back, we'll dive into even more fun facts about the Super Bowl. I bet you have no idea how the phrase I'm going to Disney World came about and which NFL player was the first to cash in for saying it following the win. That's still become on NFL explain build the team that will build your business. With Upwork, you can find top developers, designers, project managers and more who can start today so your business can succeed tomorrow higher at home or in a hundred and eighty countries around the world. To find the right talent for whatever your business needs. Up Work the World Work Marketplace. Learn more at www dot up work dot com. America's most reliable network is going ultra with Verizon five G Ultra wide band and more and more places, so you can do more with up the ten times faster speeds. 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Back here on NFL, explained Toddie Kinkaballa and Mike yam with you and we're trying to make you smart for all your Super Bowl parties. So before we actually got to the Britak we mentioned that phrase and Indedia, it's one that I'm you probably hear from your kids relatively frequently, where it's probably I want to go to Disney World. Um, but I'm going to Disney World, which we've seen so many times super Bowl m v p s. They say it all the time after a game. It's sort of one of those fun little catchphrases. Well, I know you're wondering, like, where did this thing actually come about? Well, former CEO Michael Eisner from Disney and his wife, they were having dinner with Dick Rutan and Gina Yeager, the first pilot to circle the world without refueling. When they asked him what they planned to do next, they replied, well, We're going to Disney World. Eisner's wife thought it would make a great ad campaign and the phrase was born. So Phil Simms actually the first to say it after he was named m v P of the nineteen eight seven Super Bowl. He was paid seventy five K to say that. That is Look, I'd say that's good money. In hell, I'll say that's great money even nowadays. A d D I'll take for sure. I would not only take it for that, but my kids would love it if I said, well, we're going to Disney World. But you know what Phil Simms was m v P. So let's talk about the m v ps for a second. The position that has earned the most m v P honors is totally unsurprisingly, quarterbacks. There have been thirty one quarterbacks named m v P of the Super Bowl Most, Mike, can you guess which quarterback has been named Super Bowl m v P the most. There's one guy in particular who just decided that he doesn't want to play anymore. And you and I have been convinced he had twenty more good season still left that we wanted that so it would make us feel young. Yes, we did want that. Tom Brady, you are correct. Tom Brady has four and Joe Montana has three Super Bowl m v P s. I'll tell you this. I was actually talking to a running back who is going to be playing in this game, and we were talking about the Super Bowl m v P. I think that he would be pleased to know that running backs have actually been named the Super Bowl MVP seven times. Wide receivers have also been named Super Bowl m v P seven times. Only one time in the history of the Super Bowl was a returner named the m v P. But that was Dustin Howard in Super Bowl thirty one. And you know what, he had two dred and forty four all purpose yards and he had a ninety nine yard kickoff return touchdown. Seems pretty uh m v P worthy to me, don't you think? Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, those big players are the ones that sort of stand out the most. I think, what's sort of cool for anyone who gets to see those moments in person? Are once again, did you circling back to the top of the show, the memories that you have surrounding some of those games. And there's some fans lucky enough to score some tickets for that first Super Bowl, remember super Bowl number one. Guess how much twelve bucks to see the Packers and the Chiefs, which I get it. You're like, oh, it's only twelve dollars, Well, it's really like a hundred dollars when you consider inflation in the year two, but there's been some significant price increases. Fans. You went to the Super Bowl back in twenty they paid an average of seven thousand dollars to see the Chiefs and the Niners in that game saw more than sixty two thousand fans at hard Rock Stadium in Miami. That was well short of the largest crowd in Super Bowl history. Five largest crowds in the history of the game all played yes at the Rolls Bowl in Pasadena. I was actually just there the other week for the NFL p A Collegiate Bowl, but the top three saw attendance over one hundred and three thousand. The Rolls Bowl has yet to host another game, but the largest attendance for a non Rolls Bowl game super Bowl forty five at Jerry's World, which welcomed in over nine thousand fans. That's a whole lot of beverages and hot dogs to be able to serve at those stadiums. Well, most folks will actually be watching from the comfort of their home Smike, and let's just say that the ratings for the Super Bowl have been robust for quite some time. According to Nielsen figure, super Bowl fifty one between the Pats and the Falcons is the single most watch television program of all time. One hundred and seventy two million viewers watch that twenty eight to three comeback. In fact, Mike, the most viewed TV programs of all time are all Super Bowl games. The Mash finale was the most watched TV broadcast until that record was broken by Super Bowl forty four. That was the Saints and the Colts. They brought in a hundred and six point five million viewers. All right, let's talk about what happens when you're watching at home, which I know that I don't really get to do that much, and I'm very very grateful that I don't. But if you are watching at home, or if you're at a Super Bowl party, you have to have good food and drink, right, because apparently Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest eating day of the year, behind only Thanksgiving. The estimate of what is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday, Mike, one point four billion chicken wings, one point three billion dollars spent on beer. Might change this here, there might be more hard Seltzer consumed. Maybe I don't know. Three A hard Seltzer guy beverage of choice. No, I'm more of a wine guy and occasionally a beer drinker. So and you drink wine even when watching a football game, Yeah, I have no shame. I own it. I can't say that I've drank wine on Super Bowl Sunday. All right, But what else do we think of when we besides amusing football and huge pageantry and the halftime show and food, come on commercials, commercials, commercials. Commercials. Of course, that's what makes a Super Bowl broadcast so enticing to people who love the Bowl and people who are more passive observers the commercials. So the cost of a thirty second ad for Super Bowl one was seven was in five hundred dollars. Today that would be three hundred thousand dollars. And you know what, that would be a bargain, Mike, because right now NBC is selling thirty second spots for the Super Bowl for wait fat, wait ferat wait for it six point five million dollars. And since we're talking advertising, we should mention that the National Football League takes a Super Bowl trademark very very seriously. So using Super Bowl to draw attention to your business is a violation of trademark rights. Which is why I like when we keep hearing about all these sales. Right now, it's called the big game as opposed to a Super Bowl sale. This podcast is sponsored by Kindrel. Kindrel Designs builds, manages, and modernizes the mission critical technology systems that the world depends on every day. Working side by side with their customers, they imagine things differently by forging new strategic partnerships, they unlock new possibilities, creating a world powered by healthy digital systems, a live with opportunity, oxygen to innovation, and energy to change the world. Kindrel The Heart of Progress. Kindrel Designs builds, manages, and modernizes the mission critical technology systems that the world depends on every day. Working side by side with their customers, they imagine things differently by forging new strategic partnerships. They unlock new possibilities, creating a world power by healthy digital systems, alive with opportunity, oxygen to innovation, and energy to change the world. Kindrel the Heart of Progress. Back here on NFL explained did you let's continue to talk about the cash because you threw out some big figures when it comes to the commercials, but more specifically the amount bet on Super Bowl games. One hundred and thirty six million was wagered in Vegas on Super Bowl fifty five. The record was a hundred fifty eight million who bet on the Patriots Eagle Super Bowl back in but Vegas claims that was only around one percent of those wagers. Ash says the heavy favorite was the Patriots. But while we're on the subject, a couple of little fun facts that might help you, just in case you're thinking about placing a wager this year. The winner of the coin toss has actually lost the last seven Super Bowls. The team that scores first thirty six and nineteen. And teams wearing and I love this white jerseys have won fourteen of the last seventeen Super Bowls. And the Bengals just announced that they're going to be wearing black jerseys and white pants. But you know, they lost the coin toss in the a f C Championship game and they still won the a f C. So maybe it's a year for bucking trends. I don't know. That's a nice little factory by d Well from white jerseys to the White House. The Steelers were actually the first team to visit the President after winning a Super Bowl in nineteen eighty when Jimmy Carter told them to come on down. And then after Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan made it a very regular occurrence. You know what else happened in the nineteen eighties, Mike. It was the first song dedicated to reaching the title game. It was the eighty five Bears, and they put together a little dance called the Super Bowl Shuffle, and it was a little bit cringe worthy, but it was nominated for a Grammy. That's not a joke, like it's legit, it's true. I'll tell you this. Chicago's defense was not a joke either that year, because they put together a blowout win of the Patriots in Super Bowl twenty. And since we're talking about the shuffle, I should mention that I did just hang out with Ikey Woods, who made the Icky shuffle very famous. See that transition right there. I'll take that famous Bengals alum who was very, very excited and handled the trophy presentation at the a f C Championship Game. So let's move on, Mike. I've hit you with some fun facts off the field. Let's go through some of the more interesting records on the field. How many players, Mike, do you believe have won back to back Super Bowls with different teams? Oh, the different team I was gonna say that. I think there's probably a fair amount that have won back to back titles, but the different team situation, and that's got to be a pretty exclusive list. I'd say less than ten. Less than ten is correct. There have been seven Ken Norton Jr. Dan Sanders, Derick Martin, Brandon Browner, Chris Long, Lagary Blunt, and Lashawn McCoy. Yeah. Well, Tom Brady has obviously a lot of Super Bowl wins and a ton of those records. And since he just called it a career a d D, you and I said we would dedicate like multiple podcast to him. But at least in the super Bowl deal will give him a whole section to himself. He's the only player to win Super Bowl over the span of three decades that one. I think it's almost fair to say that one might not get touched. His seven Super Bowl wins are more than twenty seven franchises have in terms of appearances. The teams with at least seven appearances the Pats, the Cowboys, the Steelers, the Broncos, and the Niners and he has more than two times the amount of passing yards in Super Bowls as the next quarterback are good friend, and if you missed his episode when he popped out with us, encourage you to go back. But our buddy Kurt Warner. Yeah, now, Britty of Chris has ten Super Bowl appearances though, but do you want to know the most consecutive appearances in a Super Bowl. That would go to quarterback Gail Gilbert, who had five. He was a backup for the Bills on their run of four consecutive losses in the early nineteen nineties, those Jim Kelly teams, of course, and then he joined the Chargers just in time to be destroyed by the Niners in the Super Bowl. Alright. The longest play in the Super Bowl a kickoff return. It was a touchdown to Kobe Jones Super Bowl forty seven. The fewest completions by a quarterback in a Super Bowl win Bob Greasy Miami six, only throughout seven times in Super Bowl eight against Minnesota. The most rushing yards in the game, How about this one? Timmy Smith had two hundred and four yards in Washington's win over Denver in Super Bowl. Smith would go on to rush for only six hundred and two yards his entire career. Way to show up in the big Game. I'll take it. Yeah, seriously, right, Okay? Since the nineteen seventies season, only four teams have won the Super Bowl without playing a home game in the playoffs. That would be the two five Steelers, the two seven Shiants, ten Packers, and the twenty twenty Tampa Bay Bucks, although Tampa did actually get to play the Super Bowl in its home stadium, which is what the Rams are getting to do. Although the Rams are officially the away team in the Super Bowl, which is just weird. By the way, don't you think it's what it is? It's the a f C S turn. Well, I think they're going to get to use their own locker room and the Bengals will use the Chargers locker room. That's my best bet. I would hope that that would be the case, all right, Mike, Another trivia question for you, how many men have won a Super Bowl as both a coach and a player? I only no one that I can think of, and that's Tony Dungee. You are correct, But joining Tony Dungee are Tom Flores, Mike Ditka, and Doug Peterson. Oh, that's once again a pretty exclusive list. All right, We'll leave you with a couple more factoroids about this year's Super Bowl between Cincinnati and l A. Sean McVeigh love the young guys. Thirty six years and twenty days as of Super Bowl Sunday, by the way, will have made the two youngest appearances as a head coach in Super Bowl history and is the youngest head coach in multiple Super Bowls to be able to coach in that game. Now, McVeigh can also become the youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl. Zach Taylor, by the way, can become the second youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl game. You know when you see that, Mike, when you see this is the first Super Bowl being coached by two men under the age of forty stab talk about feeling old. I'm kind of with you a little bit, But it does, you know, look, I mean, in a lot of ways, is it? It also screams to their ability to connect with a lot of their players to have this much success. So kudos to both of those guys. Yeah, and let's talk a little bit more about the Bengals, because three years in a row. Prior to this year, they finished last in their division and that's been done exactly once before by the Bengals in nineteen eight one. And speaking of age a d D. Since you threw it out there, how about we go on the other side of the spectrum. I know we talked about Brady and gave him a lot of love the Rams. Andrew Whitworth started a hundred and sixty four games for the Bengals from two thousand six to be the oldest offensive lineman to start in the Super Bowl in NFL history at forty years and sixty three days. And it is awesome that he's healthy because I know he's been banged up at the end of the season. So once again, I think is all of us are kind of focused in on this next Super Bowl. I know we've covered the commercials and the halftime shows, but I think a DD we're going to not only get in amazing football game, but we're also going to get what I'm going to call the greatest halftime show of all time. I don't think there's anyone more excited than me. I'm super, super, super excited obviously for the product on the field. Can't wait to be out there. But yes, halftime show, there is no sense of who is this, what's happening? I mean, the league's teaser on the halftime show. The two minute video that we watched on Twitter got me going, I can't wait, I can't wait. I'm with you. Look, I think at the end of the day, we're all expecting a ton of fanfare. It's kind of cool for us to go through some of these records and some of these cool little factoids for the game. And I hope some of our listeners who have been checking out this podcast continue to not only check out our previous ones to learn a little bit more, but they watched this year's Super Bowl through a different lens. Um Totally with you, Mike, and Hey, everybody thinks as always, that is the Super Bowl Explain brought to you by up work, where you can build the team that will build your business. Learn more at upwork dot Com. America's most reliable network is going Ultra with Verizon five G Ultra wide ban and more and more places with up to ten times faster speeds, you can download a movie in mere minutes. What Yes, Verizon is going Ultra so you can to five G ultra wide ban available and select areas most reliable Based on rankings from the Root Metrics US ROOTS Score report dated first half, excluding c ban and not specific to five G networks. Your results may vary. Not an endorsement speed comparison to median Verizon four G LTE speeds, Downloads vary based on network conditions and five G content optimization