The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the world. The Super Bowl is so big that even the commercials are worth watching. The first Super Bowl (held in January 1967) was played to plenty of empty seats and a waning TV audience. But now Super Bowl Sundays, progressively marked with Roman numerals, are the most celebrated one-game professional championship on the 12-month Gregorian calendar. The Super Bowl concludes a 16-game regular season, and three postseason play-off rounds. It pits the top team from the American Football Conference against the top team from the National Football Conference for the coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy (not to mention diamond-studded rings for players, coaches, and front office "suits"). The Sunday evening spectacle is preceded by two weeks of parties and pre-game hype.
