It's Superbowl Day

For any who are curious what this day is all about in the United States and other places around the globe that watch this game, here is some history and some facts that I pulled out of cyberspace.

What is the Super Bowl?
The Super Bowl is the 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. The first Super Bowl was played on January 15, 1967.

How did the Super Bowl come to be (from Wikipedia)?

The game was created as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League (AFL). It was agreed that the two leagues' champion teams would play in an AFL–NFL World Championship Game until the merger was to officially begin in 1970. After the merger, each league was redesignated as a "conference", and the game was then played between the conference champions.

Who has won past Super Bowls?
As would be expected, the NFL has a very nice summary here, to see the past Superbowl's winners and all the vital stats.

Who was the referee for past Super Bowls?

About.com has a summary of NFL referee's, and which Super Bowl they officiated in. Dr. Walt Anderson will be the referee for the 2011 Super Bowl.

World Cup Final or Super Bowl, who has the larger TV audience?
From Answers.com ... it's the World Cup Final (not a surprise given the relative market penetration)

While FIFA has claimed that over 1 Billion people watch the World Cup Final, that number is greatly exaggerated.

According to a 2007 article in the UK newspaper The Independent, "Fifa's overblown figures, the World Cup finals of 1998, 2002 and 2006 respectively attracted global audiences of 1.3 billion, 1.1 billion and 715.1 million people.

According to Initiative Sports Futures, independent analysts, the figure for the 2006 World Cup Final was 260 million in the 54 key markets it surveyed, accounting for 90% of the world's TV households.

Even so, at 260 million, the World Cup final had more viewers than the 2006 Super Bowl.

2006 World Cup vs. Super Bowl viewer-ship World Cup Final, Italy v France
Claim: 715.1 million, Estimated: 260 million

Super Bowl Steelers v Seahawks
Claim: 750 million-1 billion, Estimated: 98 million

So it would seem that both FIFA and the NFL are prone to a bit of exaggeration but at the end of the day, the World Cup Final takes is by 2.5 times.

Keep in mind however, the most of the world won't get the Super Bowl televised to it, as the sport is foreign to most of the world.