The duel next Sunday that will have as protagonists Tampa Bay Buccaneers Y Kansas City Chiefs will mark what will be the 55th edition of the Super Bowl, the most watched single day sporting event in the world and that will crown the champion of the National Football League (NFL).
This time, the main attraction will be in the duel between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, the quarterbacks from Tampa Bay and Kansas City, respectively. Both are enormous exponents in their position and they will also have what will truly be a generational duel, with a Brady who at 43 is going for his seventh ring, while Mahomes, with 25, wants to be two-time champion.
What is the Super Bowl?
It is the final event of the NFL Playoffs in which the champions of the two conferences that divide the league face off: la National Football Conference (NFC) y la American Football Conference (AFC). A game is played in a stadium that is chosen as venue before season starts. The curiosity this time will be in which the stage will be el Raymond James Stadium, home of the Buccaneers, marking the first time that one of the two teams will play at home in the final game of the season.
A bit of history: why it is called “Super Bowl” and when was the first duel
After the merger between the NFL and the American Football League (AFL) in 1966, it was decided to crown the season with a game initially called “World Championship between the NFL and the AFLHowever, the name was short-lived as Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs at the time, He proposed the name “Super Bowl” in honor of a rubber ball with which his children played – “Superball” – and following the tradition of putting a “bowl” on all the important games that existed at the university level.
The trophy awarded to the champions bears the current name of Vince Lombardi Trophy, in honor of the historic coach who led the Green Bay Packers to five NFL titles.
The first duel took place between Packers (NFL) and Chiefs (AFL), with the Los Angeles Coliseum as headquarters. Curiously, the first edition of the event for which tickets are resold today at stellar prices, did not manage to exhaust the seats valued at 12 dollars. Only in the fifth edition of the event was the division of the league between NFC and AFC applied to condemn the extinct Baltimore Colts (today, moved to Indapolis) over the historical Dallas Cowboys by 16-13.
As for the greatest champions in history, these are two: the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers, both with six titles.
Super Bowl, the game of millions
Although being in the history of their sport is always one of the objectives of each player, the truth is that the huge salary bonuses that are present are not negligible.
As reported by Washington Post, each player on the winning team in Super Bowl LV will receive a bonus of $ 130,000, something that adds to the money they were getting as they advance through the rounds: 33 thousand for the division champion, another 33 thousand for the winner of the divisional round and 59 thousand for the conference champion.
This means that a player who is champion you will receive a total of 255 thousand dollars in bonuses. To that, obviously, we must add the sidereal salaries that some players have.
In the case of the players of the losing team, the bonus will also be and it will be 65 thousand dollars for each one.
What this year will not be present is the enormous amount that moves the event around it, with the significant income from tourism that it means for the organizing city, as well as the thousands of parties that usually take place in the previous week. As an example, in 2020 the event was organized in Miami and a person who wanted to travel to see the game and attend a party had to fork out around $ 7,400. This year, due to the pandemic, all that will not be possible.
The NFL’s gesture with health personnel due to the pandemic
Throughout the world, sporting events have been distorted by the lack of public in their stands due to the coronavirus pandemic. Even so, the NFL achieved that during the season in some stadiums there may be an audience with reduced capacity.
For Super Bowl LV, the commissioner, Roger Goodell, confirmed that there will be 22 thousand people present with the particularity that 7,500 will be doctors and health personnel from the American Union, these being selected by lottery.
Practical Manual of Rules and Terms for Super Bowl 2021
For the Argentine spectator, American football seems complex and rugby – perhaps its closest comparison – does not have too many similarities. In principle, it is a sport in which they participate eleven players per team in four 15-minute quarters with clock stops under certain circumstances or requests for dead time.
Roughly speaking, the main objective – in addition to scoring more points than the opponent – is to travel ten yards in four attempts or less. At each attempt, the team in possession of the ball can choose between throw an aerial pass or play on the ground (called haulage). That is why, at the beginning of each offensive, the team is said to be in first and ten: first attempt and ten yards ahead. Assuming that first attempt results in a five-yard drive, then the next will be second and five and so on until they reset when they travel ten yards or more.
The usual thing is that, if the team reaches the fourth attempt without exceeding ten yards, in that fourth possession they choose to clear the ball with a kick or to kick the sticks if they are close to them. The punt gives the opponent possession and, in addition, the chance to choose between starting their offense from where they received it or playing it as soon as they receive it and trying to advance on the field before having their first attempt.
As for the ways to score points, the most common are three: the touchdown, which occurs when a team enters the opponent’s goal zone with the ball and equals six points; the Field goal, which occurs when a team, without entering the end zone, decides kick sticks for a total of three points; and the conversion the extra point, which is when, after scoring a touchdown, the team decides kick to add some more.
There are also other possibilities that are usually less frequent: safety, which occurs when the defensive team tackles an opposing player with the ball within the end zone and equals two points; and the two point conversion, which is a variant for the team that has just scored a touchdown in which, instead of kicking for the extra point, they can choose to make a pass or carry play to add two more points.