Hey, hello, and welcome to the Learn Everyday English Podcast, your roadway to English proficiency.
You've come to the right place to improve your listening comprehension skills and mastery of the English language.
My name is Gary, and I will be your host today.
I'm a native English speaker, born and raised in the United States.
I'm also a retired engineer living in a small Texas town, about one hour north of Houston.
I'm also a language learner, just like you, studying Spanish, so I know what it is like to learn a new and different language.
Hey, so now, let's jump right in to today's episode.
Hey, hello, listeners!
What's up, everybody?
And howdy, y 'all! From Texas.
Hey, this is going to be a special episode, and I'm going to call this the Super Bowl episode because the Super Bowl is today.
I'm recording this on Sunday, February 7th, but I'm going to upload it on February 8th because some of you may have watched the Super Bowl.
I know it's very popular, and this is a little information about the Super Bowl and the big game, as we call it here, in the United States.
Hey, but before we get started, I want to remind you, you can follow me at my webpage.
Just go to www .learneverydayenglish .com.
There you can find links to all the podcasts.
You can listen to them directly from the webpage.
There's also a link where you can go to the Learn Every Day English YouTube channel and watch all the interesting and engaging videos there to help you learn and improve your English.
But of course, you may know already, you can download the podcasts from any podcast application.
Hey, so well, without further ado, let's jump right in to today's episode about the Super Bowl.
Well, this episode is about a big game here in the United States called the Super Bowl.
It's one of the largest events that people watch on TV here in the United States and also around the world.
And this information, before I get started, came from a website called history .com, so I just want to give them credit for that.
And there's also going to be some information at the end that I'm going to be reading, and it's going to be facts about the NFL football players.
And that came from the Houston Chronicle magazine.
So again, I want to mention before I jump right into the details of today's episode, go to the webpage and download the program notes, and you can just follow along with me what I'm saying.
So you don't have to write everything down.
It's a good way to practice your learning of the English language because you can read along and follow along with me on the written page.
You can go back and read it yourself, and then you can also read along with me maybe a second or third time you listen to this.
So I'm going to jump right in and tell you about the Super Bowl, which is an extremely popular event or very popular event.
And specifically, it is a sporting event, and it's not just popular here in the United States, but it's popular all around the world, and it's something I knew it was popular, but I didn't realize just how popular it really is.
It is an American football game, as opposed to football, which they play all around the world, which is called soccer, but this is American football, and it's a game which is played to determine the champion of the National Football League, and a lot of times we abbreviate that or shorten it by using
the initials NFL. The Super Bowl is one of the most watched sporting events in the world, probably I'm sure after the World Cup and maybe the Tour de France and some other sporting events, but it is one of the most watched sporting events in the world, and is broadcast in more than 170 countries around
the world. I didn't realize that, 170 countries all around the world, and it's interesting, I was talking to a friend of mine in Monterrey, Mexico, and he said he likes to watch the Super Bowl and he will be watching it, so I'm assuming that a lot of you who listen to this podcast like American football
and may have watched the Super Bowl.
What makes the Super Bowl different and special is that it has an elaborate halftime show.
Elaborate means kind of just very fancy, and halftime show is a show that occurs in the middle of the game.
The game is made up of four separate quarters, so after the second quarter we call that is the first half, there is a show, and then the second half of the game continues after the halftime show.
The halftime show is interesting and fun because many celebrities or famous people, like singing singers and musicians, appear and perform during the halftime show.
Also the Super Bowl is famous for its commercials from many well -known companies, some who pay $1 million or even more to have a commercial spot during the game.
And this year's Super Bowl was played on Sunday, February 2021, February 7th to be exact, and perhaps you might have watched it, like I said, and it is a game which was held between the two teams, the Kansas City Chiefs, who were taking on or playing against, that's another way to say playing against,
they were taking on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
And a Buccaneer is just another name for like a pirate.
And this game is exciting as it is a match -up, and a match -up is just a kind of competition between two teams or two people, so it is a match -up between two great quarterbacks, Patrick Mahomes of Kansas City, or sometimes we just say of KC, and Tom Brady of the Buccaneers, or we say Tom Brady of the Bucks,
so we abbreviate the names of the teams, and we say KC is playing the Bucks, but the quarterback is kind of the leader of the football team, and so they hold a very important position on the team.
Just to give you a little bit of history about the Super Bowl, the National Football League began in 1920, so it's been around for a long time, that's about 90 years, but the Super Bowl didn't happen, or it didn't take place actually, until 1960.
So what happened is that in 1960, a group of businessmen who wanted to own football franchises, or really just football teams, but they were not allowed to do so by the NFL, so they said, hey, we're going to launch, or to start, or begin our own football league, or an alternative league, and it was known as
the American Football League.
So here you have two different leagues, the National Football League, or the NFL, and the American Football League, which was called the AFL.
So for several years, the NFL and the AFL, they were competing leagues, or they competed against each other, or they were in competition with each other for fans and support.
But in 1966, the owners of the two different leagues made an agreement to merge, and to the two leagues by 1970, so they were going to remain separate from 1966, and then in 1970, they agreed to combine the two leagues into one league.
So there was a competition when there were two separate leagues, there was the AFL and the NFL, and the champions of each one of those leagues played against each other, and the first competition took place in 1966, and it was called the AFL -NFL World Championship Game.
This is kind of a long name, though, and not a very exciting name.
So one of the owners of an AFL team, the Kansas City Chiefs, proposed or said, hey, let's change the name of the game, and let's call it the Super Bowl, so that's how the name originated.
But in 1970, the two leagues merged or combined into the NFL, so the AFL kind of went away, and the NFL was split into two main conferences, we call them, the American Football Conference, or the AFC, and the National Football Conference, or the NFC.
So today, the champions of each conference now play against each other in the Super Bowl.
A little history about the first four Super Bowl games, Super Bowl I took place on January 15, 1967, where the NFL's Green Bay Packers played against the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs.
So remember, in 1966, the two leagues hadn't combined yet.
The game was played or held at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Coliseum is just another word for, like, stadium.
And even though the ticket prices averaged just $12, well, that's a change from today, it was the only Super Bowl that didn't sell out, and didn't sell out means they didn't sell all of the tickets available.
The game aired on two different networks, like media outlets.
I'm not sure if that was TV and radio.
And it drew an audience of more than 61 ,000 fans, and the Packers beat the Chiefs by a score of 35 to 10.
Super Bowl II was held in 1968 between the NFL's Green Bay Packers and the AFL's Oakland Raiders, and the Packers won 33 to 14.
Super Bowl III was held in 1969 between the NFL's Baltimore Colts and the AFL's New York Jets, and this time the AFL won.
The Jets won with a quarterback by the name of Joe Namath, and you might have heard of him.
He's a very famous quarterback.
Super Bowl IV was held in 1970 between the NFL's Minnesota Vikings and the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs, and the Chiefs won 23 to 7.
So Super Bowl number four was the last year the two different leagues, the NFL and AFL competed against each other since they merged into one league, the NFL, after that.
And it's interesting that during the 1970s, three NFL teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Miami Dolphins, and the Dallas Cowboys, dominated the NFL League and won a combined eight out of the 10 Super Bowls in 10 years.
Now talking about the Super Bowl halftime show, the early Super Bowl halftime shows were really not that exciting or extravagant, which is kind of fancy or flashy, because they just featured marching bands from local high schools or colleges.
But as the years went on, popular musicians began to take the stage or perform, and the shows evolved into much anticipated spectacles.
A spectacle is like something that is very interesting to see, has a lot of activity.
And some viewers actually consider the halftime show, which is now a full 30 minute act or program or show, actually a bigger event than the actual football game itself, tuning in just for the musical entertainment.
So this means a lot of people just watch the Super Bowl just to see or just to watch the halftime show.
And also there are a lot of commercials by big name companies, and a lot of people like to watch the Super Bowl just to watch the commercials, interestingly enough.
And there have been a lot of internationally famed artists that have performed at the Super Bowl halftime show like Michael Jackson, U2, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Prince, Beyonce, Coldplay, and a whole lot of others.
So here are some fun facts about the Super Bowl, which you probably don't know about.
But the NFL restricts the use of the phrase Super Bowl for advertising purposes.
So that means companies can't use or can't reference the name Super Bowl in their commercials.
So they have to come up with creative alternatives, such as referring to it as the big game.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots each have six Super Bowl victories and the most of any team.
The Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers each have five wins.
The New England Patriots have appeared in 11 Super Bowls.
We say they have 11 cameos or 11 appearances, the most of any team.
The championship team or the team that wins the Super Bowl receives a trophy called the Vince Lombardi trophy.
And this is named after the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers who won the first two Super Bowls.
And because the football season runs into two calendar years, Roman numerals are used to identify each Super Bowl.
So instead of saying Super Bowl one or two with the just the letters or the numbers, one, two, three, etc., they use Roman numerals.
The Super Bowl venue and the venue is just another word for the place or location where the Super Bowl is held.
So the Super Bowl venue or location changes each year and no team has ever played in its home stadium, actually, except for this year in 2021, where the game is played in Tampa Bay and is the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Super Bowl Sunday, we call it.
So it's a really huge event, very popular.
And this specific Sunday is called Super Bowl Sunday is the second largest day for food consumption in the US with only Thanksgiving ahead of it.
So more people eat on this day except for Thanksgiving.
So a lot of eating and partying happens on Super Bowl Sunday.
According to an organization that rates TV viewers and TV watching, which is called the Nielsen ratings, Super Bowl 51 drew an average of 111 million viewers just in the United States.
And that's actually more than one third of the country's population.
So as you can see, a whole lot of people, as we call it in the US, watch the Super Bowl.
A typical 30 second commercial that airs during the Super Bowl costs the advertisers or the companies more than $5 million.
Wow, we say that's a lot of money.
And nearly 14 million Americans are expected to call in sick to work the day after the big game.
So the day, the Monday after the Super Bowl Sunday in the US is often called or sometimes we say is often dubbed, which means it is named or it is nicknamed Super Sick Monday.
Super Sick Monday. I'm going to close out with some facts about the NFL football players.
And I looked into this because my wife and I were talking about football players and maybe how much money they make and how long they play since a lot of them have a lot of injuries and they may not be able to play as long as in other professional sports like maybe basketball, baseball, soccer, that type
of thing. And I wasn't really sure.
So here's some facts that I found on cron .com, which is a Houston Chronicle, which is a newspaper in Houston, Texas.
So the NFL, the National Football League, has a total of 32 professional teams.
And as of 2018, each team plays 16 football games in a regular season over a 17 week period.
And in addition, each team will play four pre -season games.
And pre -season means games that are held before the actual true football season begins.
And you know, a lot of the players that play in the National Football League actually play football in colleges.
So there's an organization called the National Collegiate Athletics Association, or the NCAA, which governs college or university sports.
And they estimate that the total number of players in the college football system is slightly over or a little bit over or more than 73 ,000 football players that play in NCAA colleges in the United States.
So in the NFL, they draft or they choose about 253 players for each year in their draft, we call it, or where the teams are able to pick players who they want on their team to fill vacancies.
So again, the NFL usually only picks 253 players and there are 73 ,000 players in college.
So that's a very small number of college players actually are picked and make it into the NFL.
So we say this means the odds or the chances of playing football in college and then making it to the NFL is only 1 .6%.
So it's very small percentage.
And the likelihood of a high school football player getting to the NFL is only 0 .2%.
So that's very, very low.
So there are a lot of kids out there who are playing football and they think, Oh man, I'm just going to be a super football star.
I'm going to make it to the NFL.
I'm going to make it into what we call the big times.
I'm going to be able to make a lot of money, be famous, but the chances of that happening are very, very small.
We say very, very slim, really next to nothing.
As we say in English, the median salary or salaries, how much money a football player makes for all NFL players in general is $860 ,000 a year.
So that, that is a lot of money.
So we say that is not a shabby income.
Shabby means like not very good.
So it's not shabby.
That means it's, it's the opposite of shabby, which is very good.
It's really a quite nice or incredible amount of money, but it is far below the $2 million that people talk about, say in the media.
So a lot of people say, Hey, the average football player makes $2 million a year, but that's really not true because that's offset by just a few players that make a large amount of money.
But if you average it out, and that's why we say the median salary for all NFL players is $860 ,000 a year.
And then for a starting one year rookie, he gets a minimum income or minimum salary of $435 ,000 a year.
So again, that's a lot of money, say, especially for a young person just coming out of college.
That's almost a half million dollars.
The quarterbacks of the team usually make the most money and they have a median income of just a little bit over $1 million a year, $1 .1 million.
So the NFL currently has a limit of 53 players per team.
And because the league has 32 teams, this means the total number of players in the NFL is 1 ,696.
So unless new teams are added, the total number of players will not increase.
So football players who are fortunate enough to get drafted or to get picked and play in the NFL can indeed earn or make a very good income.
And median salaries for most positions are in excess of or higher than or more than $500 ,000.
However, the physical abuse of the game limits the playing time to a range of five to seven years.
So as we know, football is a very impact, we call it an impact sport and players get injured all the time.
So like I said, players on average only play for an average of five to seven years before they stop playing.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode and this information about the Super Bowl, one of the most watched sporting events in the world and which happened yesterday, Sunday, February 7th.
I know doing this research about this, I learned a lot of things, things I didn't know, and I hope you learned something as well.
Again, go to the Learn Every Day English webpage, download the program notes, and you can follow along, read along with me, go back and reread the notes, listen to the podcast over again several times, and then read along with me with the notes.
Then you may want to read aloud the program notes along with me to practice your pronunciation, in addition to practicing your listening comprehension skills.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this special episode of the Learn Every Day English podcast, the Super Bowl episode.
I'd love to hear from you and what you thought of this episode.
If you have any questions for me, or if you have any suggestions for specific topics you would like me to discuss on this program, just go to the Learn Every Day English webpage in the home page.
At the bottom is a contact form.
Just fill that out and send me a line.
Send me, I'll get an email, and I'll be happy to read your email, read your comments, and try to put together an episode of a topic or subject you would like for me to talk about and discuss.
Hey, well, that's it for now.
Be sure to check out our upcoming episodes.
Hope you enjoy these podcasts, and thanks for listening.
Goodbye.
