Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the NFL title game, played between the AFC champion and the NFC champion. The winner of the Super Bowl receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named after the coach who won the first two Super Bowls. The first Super Bowl took place on January 15, 1967, with the Lombardi-coached Green Bay Packers defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Since then, the Super Bowl has morphed from the title game created as part of the merger between the American Football League and the National Football League in the ‘60s into a cultural touchpoint in the U.S. It’s the most-watched event on television yearly in the U.S., and it’s not even close. The Super Bowl broadcast rotates across four networks: CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. Brands pay millions of dollars for a 30- or 60-second advertisement spot, hoping to the 125 million-or-so people that watch the Super Bowl. Ahead of the 2025 Super Bowl, Fox sold at least 10 of its commercial spots for more than $8 million each.

Many viewers tune into the Super Bowl for just the commercials or the halftime show, which has become its own significant production. The earliest halftime shows featured collegiate marching bands; now some of music’s biggest stars perform during the halftime show, which is sponsored by Apple Music and produced by Roc Nation in 2025. R&B and pop star Usher took the stage at the 2024 Super Bowl, while rapper Kendrick Lamar will perform in New Orleans in 2025. These mega-stars don’t get paid for their show, but the league does cover production and travel costs.

Super Bowl tickets can cost thousands of dollars; the 2024 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers saw the most expensive tickets in Super Bowl history, according to ticket marketplace Stubhub. Much of the demand was driven by the fact that the Super Bowl was held in Las Vegas for the first time.

Super Bowl 59 will be played on Feb. 9, 2025 at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. The reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs are chasing a record third straight Super Bowl victory against the Philadelphia Eagles.