Super Bowl LV Is This Sunday
All eyes will be on Tampa, Fla. this coming Sunday, Feb. 7, as the LV Super Bowl, 55th one, comes to town. This is the first Super Bowl in its history that has a hometown football team playing.
Who came up with the name Super Bowl? Funny you should ask. The founder of the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Hunt, suggested the name. His children had been playing with a Super Ball toy and at the owners meeting he told the story and the name Super Bowl was adopted.
Hunt, one of the sons of oil tycoon, H. L. Hunt, previously had started a football team in Dallas, the Dallas Texans, but it was not a success considering the Dallas Cowboys attracted most of the fans. So, he decided to find a town that would welcome his team and Kansas City, Mo. mayor at the time was eager and cooperative to guarantee that 25,000 fans would show up for home games. Many believe that the name, Chiefs, refers to native Indians, but it was really the nickname of the mayor of Kansas City, Mo.
The first Super Bowl, January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10. And as most every championship game has a trophy. Pete Rozelle, commissioner of the NFL, asked Oscar Riedner, vice president of Tiffany and Company, to design and make a fitting trophy for the Super Bowl.
Riedner, never interested in football, left the meeting and went to a store and bought a regulation football and went home. The next morning he was eating a bowl of corn flakes and decided to play around to make the trophy. He fashioned the bottom of the trophy from the corn flakes box and angled the football in a passing position. Rozelle met with Riedner again and drew his design on a cocktail napkin. He liked it.
Tiffany has been making the trophy ever since. It stands 22 inches tall, made of sterling silver and weighs seven pounds. Each year the winning team gets the trophy and takes it back home.
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Super Bowl halftimes have become quite famous over the years, but they did not start out that way. For the first three years, local marching bands would do a traditional halftime show, but in 1970, the first celebrity entertained, Carol Channing, who had starred on Broadway in the musical, “Hello, Dolly.” One year two men donned jet packs and flew about 60 feet over the crowd. Famous musicians, Michael Jackson, who stood motionless for almost two minutes before the crowd before starting to sing, Prince sang “Purple Rain” in the rain, and last year, it was a shaking good time, Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, just to name a few.
The Super Bowl rings, wow. The first Super Bowl ring had one diamond. In 2017, there were 283 diamonds signifying the score, 28-3, that the Atlanta Falcons led at the half over the Patriots. The final score was 34-28, Patriots won.
The NFL kicks in $5,000 per ring up to 150 rings with the teams paying any excess. The Patriot 2017 cost $36,500 each. Each ring is made of yellow or rose 10 karat gold with diamonds, and has the team name, logo, “World Champions: and Super Bowl number in Roman numerals. Inside the ring is the name and number of the player.
Players, coaches, staff, front office and some family members receive a ring. The average ring size is 13 going up to size 23 for the record holder, William “Refrigerator” Perry. In 2005, Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, made a visit to Russian and was showing Russian President Vladimir Putin his Super Bowl ring. Putin accepted it as a gift and the ring is now on display at the Kremlin. Two 1970 Super Bowl rings were sold on Ebay for $69,000 each. By the way, runner up players also receive rings.
How much do the players receive for playing in the Super Bowl? Winners this year will receive $130,000 each and runner 8ups will receive $65,000.
This year unlike any other events will be limited. In fact, Kansas City Chiefs will not arrive until the day before the game. Usually there is a week of interviews and hype. Covid virus has stopped all that. The Raymond James stadium in Tampa which seats upwards of 70,000 will only allow 14,500 tickets to be sold and they are giving 7,500 free tickets to vaccinated health care workers. Ticket prices begin at $5,700 upwards to $22,369 and very limited.
The first Super Bowl was televised on both CBS and NBC. New Orleans Superdome, now called Mercedes Benz Superdome, has hosted the most with seven bowls being played there. Jacksonville, Fla. could not accommodate the number of fans and brought in several luxury cruise ships as temporary hotels.
Towns where the Super Bowl are to be held are chosen five years in advance. Some speculate that the 2024 bowl will be held in London, England. A rule that dictates the location. The city needs to have an average temperature that does not dip below 50 degrees around game day unless the stadium has a roof. The weather for this years game in Tampa is 61 degrees at game time and 21 percent rain. “Super Bowl” is a registered trademark and using it for an event is in violation of the law.
Quarterbacks this year are 43 year old Tom Brady who began in the NFL in 2000 and was the Patriots quarterback longer than any other in NFL history. He was drafted by the Patriots as the 199th player in the sixth round. His father began his career as an insurance salesmen. Brady commented when he was finally chosen in the draft that now he doesn’t have to sell insurance.
Patrick Mahomes was the 10th player in the first round to be picked by Kansas City Chiefs. He is 25 years old and playing in his second Super Bowl. He recently signed the largest contract in the history of any sport, $503 million. His father was a MLB baseball player.
Look for some Georgians in the game this year. Harrison Butler who played for Georgia Tech, and Mecole Hardman and Deandre Baker who played for Georgia are now Kansas City Chief players.
Good Luck to the teams.
