Super Bowl

Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. Super Bowl I was played on January 15, 1967, following the 1966 regular season.

The day on which the Super Bowl is played, now considered by some an unofficial American national holiday, is called "Super Bowl Sunday". It is the second-largest day for U.S. food consumption, after Thanksgiving Day. In addition, the Super Bowl has frequently been the most watched American television broadcast of the year; the four most-watched broadcasts in U.S. television history are Super Bowls. In 2014, Super Bowl XLVIII became the most-watched American television program in history with an average audience of 111.5 million viewers, the fourth time in five years the game had set a record, starting with the 2010 Super Bowl, which itself had taken over the number-one spot held for 27 years by the final episode of M*A*S*H. The Super Bowl is also among the most-watched sporting events in the world, almost all audiences being North American, and is third to soccer's UEFA Champions League final and El Clásico in Spain, as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide.

The NFL restricts the use of its "Super Bowl" trademark; it is frequently called the Big Game or other generic terms by non-sponsoring corporations. Because of the high viewership, commercial airtime during the Super Bowl broadcast is the most expensive of the year, leading to companies regularly developing their most expensive advertisements for this broadcast. As a result, watching and discussing the broadcast's commercials has become a significant aspect of the event. In addition, popular singers and musicians including Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Whitney Houston have performed during the event's pre-game and halftime ceremonies.