After a week of wall-to-wall Deflategate coverage, the NFL hopes to return the focus to the action on the field and the teams involved in the Super Bowl. There have been 298 games this year, including preseason and playoffs, and it comes down to one final contest to crown a champion. The New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, along with the Denver Broncos, were the betting favorites to reach the Super Bowl in August. While still a rarity, it is the second straight year two preseason favorites made the Big Game. Here is what you need to know about the teams, star players, owners, coaches, halftime show, betting and money around Sunday's game.
1. First the basics on when and where. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 ET from University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth are calling the game for NBC. It is Michaels’ ninth Super Bowl as play-by-play man. For the diehards, NBC is kicking off pre-game coverage at noon on Sunday. For those that can’t get to a TV or have the cut the cord to your cable, NBC is streaming the game online and to mobile devices.
2. If you don’t have a ticket yet, it is going to be pricey. Sunday’s game is shaping up to the most expensive Super Bowl ever on the secondary market. The average list price on TipIQ was $6,500 a week before kickoff. The average price was barely half that last year the Sunday before the game.
3. This is the second Super Bowl at University of Phoenix Stadium (joining XLII) and third in the Phoenix metro (XXX at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe).
4. Kansas City was originally selected to host the game by NFL owners, but the deal was contingent on taxpayers approving a sales tax for a roof over Arrowhead Stadium. Voters rejected the tax.
5. University of Phoenix inked a 20-year, $154.5 million naming rights deal to the home of the Arizona Cardinals in 2006. The educational institution is under intense scrutiny that started with a Senate investigation of for-profit colleges in 2010.
6. This is the Patriots’ eighth Super Bowl appearance, which ties the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers for the most all-time. A Patriots loss would be their fifth and tie the Denver Broncos for most all-time. The Steelers have won the most all-time at six.
7. The Seahawks are making their second straight Super Bowl appearance. They lost Super Bowl XL after the 2005 season to Steelers and won last year. The Pats were the last team to appear in and last team to win back-to-back Super Bowls after the 2003, 2004 seasons.
8. The Super Bowl features the NFL’s top-ranked defense in both scoring and yards (Seahawks) versus the Patriots offense, which scored the fourth most points in the NFL. The Seahawks have given up the fewest points three straight seasons. The Pats have had a top-four offense each of the past five years.
9. One of the biggest storylines is Tom Brady’s chance to further his legacy with a fourth Super Bowl win, matching the QB record of Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, and put his name in the short conversation of the best QBs of all-time (if he is not there already). Brady is one of two players with six Super Bowl appearances. Mike Lodish, a little known defensive tackle with the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos, was the other.
10. Brady hold a host of playoff records, including most wins (20), touchdown passes (49) and yards passing (7,017).
11. Brady and Russell Wilson were two of the NFL’s lowest-paid starting QBs in 2014 with base salaries of $2 million (Brady) and $662,434 (Wilson). The base salaries don’t tell the whole picture. Brady got a $30 million signing bonus in the new deal he signed in 2013.
12. Wilson is still playing off of his four-year, $3 million rookie contract. He made less than his backup Tarvaris Jackson in 2014. Wilson’s payday is coming. He is poised to be the NFL’s next $100 million man. The Seahawks allocated only 1.9% of their team salary cap to the QB position in 2014, according to Spotrac.
13. Brady has made $150 million in playing salary and bonuses in his career, according to Spotrac. Only Peyton Manning has made more in NFL history.
14. Brady remains one of the NFL’s most marketable players with off-field income estimated at $7 million from licensing and endorsement partners like UGG for Men and
15. Wilson is shooting to be the first starting QB with two Super Bowl titles in their first three seasons (it took Brady four seasons).
16. Wilson’s career passing rating of 98.6 is topped only by Aaron Rodgers.
17. Wilson is 10-0 against Super Bowl winning quarterbacks and will attempt to make it 11-0 against Brady and the Pats on Sunday. His team's record is 42-13, including playoffs, in his career. The 42 wins are the most by a QB in their first three seasons.
18. Wilson had the NFL’s second best-selling merchandise from September through November. Brady was No. 5 and Richard Sherman ranked No. 8.
19. Bill Belichick has a record of 180-55 with Brady as his QB. Without Brady, he is a pedestrian 52-63.
20. Belichick is the third coach to face his predecessor in the Super Bowl with Pete Carroll holding the job Pats job from 1997-99. Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden faced Oakland’s Bill Callahan in Super Bowl XXXVII and the Jets' Weeb Ewbank won Super Bowl III in an epic upset of his former team Baltimore and Don Shula.
21. Belichick earned his record 21 postseason win in the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts. He broke a tie with Tom Landry. Belichick’s six conference titles ties Shula for the most all-time.
22. Belichick and Carroll were both head coaches of the New York Jets, although Belichick’s reign only lasted one day and is renowned for his abrupt resignation note on a napkin that read “I resign as HC of the NYJ.” Carroll lasted one season in New York (1994) with a 6-10 record.
23. Carroll has more 1.1 million Twitter followers. Belichick, not surprisingly, is not on the social networking platform. Sherman has the most followers of anyone playing in the Super Bowl with 1.2 million. Russell Wilson has 1.1 million. Rob Gronkowski is the top Patriot on Twitter with 745,000 followers.
24. Carroll is in the final year of his original five-year, $35 million deal with the Seahawks. He signed an extension in April, adding two more years, that makes him one of the three highest-paid coaches in the sport. Belichick’s paycheck is estimated to be $8 million annually. Despite his youthful vibe, Carroll, 63, is the second oldest NFL coach. Belichick is third and seven months younger.
25. Last year, Carroll joined Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as the only head coaches to win a college National Championship and Super Bowl. Carroll’s first NFL head coaching job was with the New York Jets in 1994. He was fired after one 6-10 season.
26. Betting is one of the engines that makes the NFL go, and the Super Bowl is the most bet on sporting event annually in Nevada. Last year, a record $119.4 million was bet legally. Of course millions more are bet illegally. Vegas made a killing last year with profits nearly $20 million when the favored Broncos were blown out 43-8. Vegas’ sports books have lost money only twice in the past 24 Super Bowls.
27. You can bet on just about anything with the Super Bowl. Bovada has more than 500 team and player prop bets that range from the basic (“First TD” with Marshawn Lynch the favorite at 11/2) to the outrageous (“Who will the Super Bowl MVP mention first in his interview” with “Teammates” the favorites over God right now). A $100 bet wins $400 if Lynch grabs his crotch after scoring a TD.
28. Seattle entered the playoffs on a six-game winning streak. The last team to enter the playoffs on at least a five-game winning streak and win the Super Bowl was the 2003 Patriots, who had won 12 in a row.
29. The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Patriots (41-14) and Seahawks (24-20) in 2014. They were just the fifth team to beat both Super Bowl participants and not make the playoffs.
30. The Patriots and Seahawks were both the top seeds in their conference during the playoffs. Both top seeds met in the Super Bowl only twice in the past two decades (Colts-Saints after the 2009 season and Seahawks-Broncos last year).
31. While the Northeast was slammed by a snowstorm this week, the weather in Glendale Sunday is expected to be 73 degrees and sunny. As of now, the NFL plans to keep the roof open at University of Phoenix Stadium. The Arizona Cardinals did not play one game with the roof open this season.
32. The Cardinals’ home features the NFL’s only retractable field. It takes 75 minutes for the field to move 741 feet in/out of the stadium. The field weighs nearly 10,000 tons.
33. The Patriots rank No. 2 in Forbes NFL team valuations with a value of $2.6 billion (Robert Kraft paid $172 million for the team in 1994). The Seahawks rank No. 15 at $1.33 billion (Paul Allen spent $194 million for the team in 1997).
34. Microsoft co-founder Allen is by far the NFL’s richest owner with a net worth of $17 billion (Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross is second at $6.1 billion). Kraft is hardly a pauper with a net worth of $4 billion from his ownership of the Pats and the privately-owned Kraft Group, which has $2.5 billion in revenue.
35. Allen bought the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers in 1988 and the Seahawks in 1997 and finally broke through last year with his first title after 42 seasons without a championship. The Blazers currently have the NBA’s fourth best record in the NBA.
36. Players on the winning team earn $97,000. The losers make do with $49,000. Seahawks left tackle Russell Okung earned $515,294 weekly during the season.
37. NBC set 30-second ad rates at $4.5 million for the game, $500,000 above last year’s record and up four-fold from 20 years ago. NBC will generate roughly $350 million from ads. Rookie advertisers include Avocados From Mexico, cruise-operator
38. This game has good chance to break the record for U.S. viewing audience of 112.2 million people set during the Broncos-Seahawks matchup last year. Eight of the past nine Super Bowls set a new record.
39. NBC gave The Blacklist series the coveted lead-out spot after the game. Don’t worry if you forget this. Something tells me you’ll see a promo or two for this during the game.
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41. Katy Perry is the featured artist for the halftime show. Her three studio albums have all gone platinum in the U.S. and sold a combined 6.2 million copies and millions more outside the U.S. Could her top downloads be a play list for Sunday? Firework, E.T., Dark Horse, Roar, California Gurls and Hot N’ Cold all have been downloaded more than five million times.
42. Perry will not be paid for Sunday’s performance, which amounts to a 12-minute commercial for the pop princess before 115 million people (last year’s performance by Bruno Mars had more viewers than the game). The NFL reportedly wanted performers to pay to play the halftime show, but Perry confirmed this month that she would not be paying to perform at the Super Bowl.
43. Perry brings her own massive audience to the show. Her 2014 concert world tour grossed $153 million between May and December, according to Pollstar. She has more Twitter followers (64 million) than any other person on the planet.
44. Lenny Kravitz will join Perry as a guest performer. Idina Menzel of Frozen fame will perform the national anthem, while John Legend was tapped to sing “America the Beautiful.”
45. The all-time series between the Patriots and Seahawks is knotted at 8-8. They faced each other only once the past six seasons, which ended in a 24-23 Seahawks’ win in 2012 when then-rookie Russell Wilson threw two TDs in the final eight minutes to rally his team from a 23-10 deficit.
46. Massachusetts and Washington are both hotbeds for venture capital investment, ranking second and fifth in 2013 for VC spending, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers and Venture Economics.
47. Glendale mayor Jerry Weiers says his city will lose money on the Super Bowl, as it did for the 2008 game. The Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee has a different take figuring the Super Bowl will bring an estimated $500 million in economic impact to Arizona. PwC estimates the Super Bowl will generate $206 million in direct spending in the greater Phoenix area.
48. Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest day of food consumption in the U.S. after Thanksgiving. The National Chicken Council projects 1.25 billion chicken wings will be consumed on Sunday. Numbers from the Snack Food Association include 11.2 million pounds of potato chips, 8.2 million pounds of tortilla chips and 3.8 million pounds of popcorn.
49. Most importantly: Who is going to win? The latest odds have the Patriots favored by 2 with the over/under set at 48 1/2. The line initially opened with the Seahawks slightly favored, but swung as early money poured in on the Patriots.
Enjoy the game!
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