So maybe you won't be the most knowledgeable sports fan at your Super Bowl party â€' that doesn't mean you have to sit there in silence. Take these super-smart facts about the Super Bowl and rattle them off as your own, then sit back and enjoy your status as the coolest person in the room. Go Seahawks. Go Broncos. Go Seabroncos?
This is a very evenly-matched Super Bowl, both on the field and in terms of city population. As of July 1st, 2012, Denver's population was 634,265 and Seattle's was 634,535, a difference of just 270 people.
Denver's Peyton Manning and Seattle's Russell Wilson will set the Super Bowl record for largest age difference between starting quarterbacks, at 12 years and 250 days. Wilson was 9 years old when Manning started his first NFL game.
What do stem cells have to do with the Super Bowl? Maybe everything. In 2011, Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning traveled to Europe for stem cell therapy treatments (ones that aren't currently available in the United States) that may have saved his career after a severe neck injury.
Seattle's star running back, Marshawn Lynch, loves to munch on Skittles before and during the game. Why? It's what his mom gave him when he was a kid. But there's some science behind it, too. ESPN's Sport Science showed that, though the process of glycolosis, his strength, reaction time and agility all increased after pounding some Skittles.
INSTANT REPLAY STILL SUCKS ASS
Tech
The most important piece of tech in the Super Bowl may be in Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman's ears. Coleman will be the first deaf player to ever participate in a Super Bowl, and will have hearing aids in both ears, as well as backups and extra batteries.
In case the game wasn't being covered from enough angles, Fox will have an infrared, heat-measuring camera at this year's Super Bowl. The technology did prove to be useful at a baseball game once.
In addition to the infrared camera, Fox will have 52 cameras on-site at the Super Bowl. Six of them will have 4K resolution and eight of them will be capable of shooting super slow-motion.
The system that allows NFL coaches to speak directly into the helmets of their quarterbacks â€' that's the green dot on the back of the quarterbacks' helmets â€' is a digital system that uses 260 million different encryption codes to keep those communications private.
The system that allows viewers at home to see the first-down line on the field of play is now a 15-year-old technology. Someone else has developed another technology that uses lasers, and could be seen by players on the field and fans in the stands.
PIGSKINS IN A BLANKET
Food and Beverages
In a bit of an upset, vegetables are actually more popular on Super Bowl Sunday than chicken wings. A Nielsen survey ranked them as the third-most popular Super Bowl food, behind only salty snacks and dips.
The Super Bowl is the United States' second biggest food consumption day of the year, but only the eighth biggest beer consumption day of the year. Memorial Day and the Fourth of July are much bigger beer days.
The National Chicken Council reports that Americans will eat 1.25 billion chicken wings on Sunday. That equates to about four chicken wings for every man, woman and child in the United States.
In 2012, it was estimated that 48 million Americans â€' more than 1 in 7 â€' would be ordering delivery or takeout during the game.
While the Super Bowl seems tailor-made for sports bars, a Nielsen survey shows that only about one percent of people plan to watch the game at a bar or restaurant.
DON’T KNOW ROMAN NUMERALS? YOU’RE SO SCREWED
Numbers
Your odds of picking the correct winner and the correct final score are no better than 400-to-1, according to San Diego State University Information systems professor Dr. Jim Lackritz.
If you can, stay off the roads for a little while after the game, because incidents of traffic accidents go up about 70 percent in the hour immediately after the game ends. Rates go up even higher in the state that's home to the losing team.
Forty-nine percent of Americans self-identify as NFL fans, according to a recent poll. That's down seven percent from last year. This might also explain the uptick in NFL-themed funerals last year (FYI, we made this fact up).
If your team loses in the Super Bowl, please don't let it kill you. A 2011 study found that there was a 15 percent increase in all circulatory deaths in men associated with Super Bowl loss, and it went up to 27 percent for women.
The Super Bowl is the only major sporting event to name itself with Roman numerals. It started with Super Bowl V in 1971 â€' Super Bowls I through IV were retroactively changed â€' and only because Lamar Hunt, one of the NFL's pioneers, thought Roman numerals added a sense of importance.
REMEMBER, THE NFL IS A TAX-FREE BUSINESS
Money
This year's Super Bowl winners will get $92,000, while the losers get half of that, $46,000. That $46,000 difference represents .3% of Peyton Manning's 2013 salary, and 11.4% of the salary of the game's lowest-paid players (based on 2013 base salaries).
On the subject of salaries, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell made $29.46 million in 2012. Also, the NFL enjoys tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit organization.
Private jets are in high demand during Super Bowl week. Teterboro airport (just five miles from the stadium) has about 600 reservations for landing and parking. One company is offering a customized G-650 (complete with flight attendants dressed as your team's cheerleaders) for just $100,000.
Super Bowl XLVIII will likely be the first one to top $100 million in Vegas gambling. Last year, Vegas casinos took $98.9 million in bets, and the year before, they took $93.9 million. There's still time to gamble on whether or not Knowshon Moreno will cry during the national anthem (that's a real thing).
Hotels near New Jersey's MetLife Stadium are taking full advantage of the game. A Best Western in West Orange, New Jersey has a normal room rate of $100 and a Super Bowl rate of $1,000.
The commercials. You know they're funny and you know they're expensive, but do they actually make you buy things? In fact, they do. A study has shown that companies who advertise during the Super Bowl see their sales increase by an average of 11 percent the next month.
LET’S GET PHYSICS-CAL
Science
The atmospheric pressure at the Super Bowl will be more familiar to the Seahawks than the Broncos. Seattle's home stadium and MetLife Stadium are both at about sea level, while the Broncos play their home games at about a mile above it (hence Denver’s nickname).
If you hear a commentator refer to a “perfect spiral,†he or she is lying. According to William Rae, a SUNY Buffalo professor, a completely wobble-free spiral, thrown by a human arm, is impossible.
An NFL linebacker hitting an NFL running back of a similar size can generate about 1,150 pounds of force in the opposite direction. This can happen to a single player dozens of times in one game. Ouch.
When the game ends, there won't be any football for a while, and football withdrawal is apparently a real thing. Though it won't be serious enough to require medication, Dr. Angelos Halaris at Loyala University says it's as real as post-holiday blues.
NIPPLEGATE POPS UP AGAIN
Halftime Show
In honor of the 10th anniversary of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, (and unofficial inspiration for the creation of YouTube) please enjoy an encore presentation of her performance with Justin Timberlake.
LEATHER AND LACES
Materials
The Lombardi Trophy that's presented to the game winners is crafted entirely of sterling silver, and is hand-made by the Tiffany company using old school silversmithing techniques. From start to finish, it takes four months.
The playing surface at MetLife Stadium is an artificial turf made of synthetic fibers backed by a mixture of 70% rubber and 30% sand. The fake blades of grass are 2½ inches tall and the field is composed of 1.4 billion of them (they may or may not all be paid for).
The first footballs were made of actual pig bladders. Despite the ball's nickname, at no point has the football ever been made of pigskin.
Nike has put quite a bit of technology into the uniforms the players will be wearing during the game. A bit about their special Super Bowl gloves: "A seamless outer-shell of Nike Hyperfuse construction provides for wind and water-resistance, while a fleece lining allows for extra warmth. Nike Magnigrip material on the palm enhances durability and grip in all weather conditions." Dry. Warm. Grip. Got it.
The first shoes "inspired by, and developed from 3-D printing" will be worn during the Super Bowl. The Nike Vapor Carbon Elite is manufactured using the selective laser sintering (SLS) printing process, which can create very strong, highly intricate patterns faster and more easily than traditional manufacturing techniques.
4TH AND INTERESTING INCHES
Measurements
Sylvester Williams, defensive tackle for the Broncos, has a thigh circumference of 32.92 inches. That's thigh. Not waist. Thigh.
Earlier this season, Seattle Seahawks fans broke the world record for loudest crowd roar at a sports stadium, generating 137.6 dB, which is almost as loud as what you'd hear on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
For a sport that's billed as "a game of inches," the official measurements of an NFL football aren't terribly precise. An NFL football is between 11 and 11¼ inches long, 28 to 28½ inches in length circumference, and has a circumference around the middle of the ball of 21 to 21¼ inches. It's inflated to 12½ to 13½ pounds of pressure and weighs 14 to 15 ounces. The technical name of the shape is oblate spheroid.
According to ESPN's Sport Science, Seattle's star cornerback Richard Sherman, at six feet three inches tall, with a 38-inch vertical leap, can reach a football anywhere within a range of 2,700 cubic feet around him.
Broncos running back Montee Ball’s calves each have a circumference of 16.8 inches, and they can propel him upwards with about 1,400 pounds of force.
CLEAR LANES, FULL BUSES, CAN’T LOSE
Logistics
With very little parking available at the stadium, Super Bowl XLVIII has been called "the first mass transit Super Bowl.†Buses will get 50,000 of the 82,000 fans to the game (with each of them paying $51 for a ride), while most of the rest will arrive by train.
At the game itself, there will be roughly 4,000 security workers. That's about one security person for every 20.5 fans in the stadium.
Among the security measures the New York Police Department is taking are helicopters and boats equipped with radiation sensors. Also on the job are bomb-sniffing dogs and 360-degree cameras.
THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW, TWEET
Internet
To accommodate the texting and tweeting needs of the 82,000 in attendance, MetLife stadium now has more than 550 WiFi antennas in place. Verizon and AT&T have upgraded their networks near the stadium as well.
According to NPR's Elise Hu, last year's Super Bowl generated the three most tweeted about events in Twitter's history (at the time). Beyonce's halftime show generated 268,000 tweets per minute, while the blackout generated 231,500.
This will be the third Super Bowl that is streamed for free (legally) online. Unfortunately for online viewers, they'll see a different, presumably less-entertaining, set of commercials.
RICHARD SHERMAN RECYCLES HIS TRASH TALK
Green
MetLife Stadium is one of the league's greenest: it was built with 40,000 tons of recycled steel, 20,000 of it coming from the demolished stadium it replaced.
You'll see a lovely ring of light around the top of MetLife Stadium, but it's not there just to generate pretty colors. That's the NRG Solar Ring, and it's comprised of 1,350 solar panels that help power the stadium.
To help offset the Super Bowl's environmental impact, the NFL has planted 27,000 trees in New York and New Jersey.
IF YOU’VE READ THIS FAR, YOU’VE WON THE SUPER BOWL OF READING
Overtime
Weather was a concern for this year's Super Bowl, and when it comes to weather, only one opinion is important: that of Punxsatawney Phil. For the first time in history, the Super Bowl falls on the same day as Groundhog Day.
Many sports fans believe that science won't have much to do with determining the winner. Nineteen percent of fans, according to one study, believe God will play a role in determining who wins the game.
Everyone playing in the Super Bowl got a special pair of Beats By Dre Pro headphones, which while expensive to begin with, cost a bit more due to the diamonds on them.
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