On the night of 11 February (at 02:00 GMT+3), the final play-off of the NFL - the Super Bowl LVIII will be held in Las Vegas. This game is considered one of the main social and cultural phenomena in the United States and the most profitable sporting event in the world. Telecomasia.net will tell you all about the upcoming game.
Bet on the Super Bowl with 1xBetWhat is the Super Bowl?
The Super Bowl is the major TV show of the year in the United States. On average, more than 100 million Americans watch the final game of the NFL season, and in recent years several tens of millions of viewers around the world. Therefore, this game is also considered to be the most expensive one of the year.
In 2024, the cost of a 30-second commercial during the broadcast will cost $7 million dollars. Plus, the meeting itself is also an important factor for the country's economy - CBS estimates that U.S. residents will spend more than $17 billion next weekend to buy food, drinks and other goods to watch the game.
Super Bowl LVIII will be held in Las Vegas. This is one of the factors that fueled the interest of Americans in betting. The total volume of all bets placed on the NFL finals is expected to be $23.1 billion. However, only $1.5 billion of the $23 billion will come from legal betting companies. A big warning for the whole industry.
Besides the game itself, the audience will be waiting for the traditional Halftime Show during the meeting. This time rapper Usher will perform, something that has already caused some confusion. The NFL's choice seems like a huge setback compared to the previous performers. After all, the rapper's popularity has dropped significantly in recent years. On the other hand, if the performance succeeds in the end, many will be pleased because of the low expectations.
How does qualifying work?
The Super Bowl is the final game of the NFL season. Because of the nature of the sport (its high contact and injury rate), the championship is only 5 months long. Each of the 32 clubs in the league plays 17 games during the regular season, then the best 14 qualify for the playoffs.
The league is divided into two equal conferences, the NFC and the AFC. That means that 7 teams from each "unit" make it to the playoffs - the winners of the four divisions and three wild cards. The regular season used to end on New Year's weekend, but due to the lengthening of the season to 18 game weeks (as the league and each team had a day of rest), it now ends on the second weekend of January.
Therefore, the Super Bowl now also takes place on the second Sunday of February. The location of the game is determined by the league several years beforehand. For example, the season finale was originally supposed to be held in New Orleans, but in 2020 the NFL moved the game a year ahead because of the Mardi Gras festival.
The playoff stages are made up of one match: first the wild-card round, followed by the divisional round, and then the conference finals. The winners of this match are the ones who advance to the playoff finals, and the league gives them an extra week of rest and preparation.
Bet on the Super Bowl with 1xBetWho will play in Super Bowl 2024?
The Kansas City Chiefs (AFC winners) and San Francisco 49ers (NFC winners) will play in the Super Bowl 2024. These teams have already met each other in 2020, the Chiefs were the stronger team then. These two clubs can be called the strongest, so this matchup is hardly sensational.
Kansas City has almost turned into a real dynasty that will annoy everyone in the coming years, just like the New England Patriots with Tom Brady did. In 2017, the Chiefs made arguably the best decision in their history - the club chose quarterback Patrick Mahomes from a not-so-powerful college, Texas Tech, as their 10th overall draft pick.
What happened next is the stuff of legend. In his second season, Mahomes led the team to the conference finals, and in 2019, Kansas City won its first NFL championship in 50 years. In his short career, the quarterback had never been eliminated before the conference finals - a unique achievement of the NFL.
The current Super Bowl will be the fourth for Mahomes - and he has previously won two. However, the 2023 season was not going so well - the team was only third in its conference, which meant that the club had to play away against Buffalo in the divisional round. This is a crucial detail for understanding the greatness of the team - it was the first away playoff game for Patrick in his career!
But the Chiefs have other stars, particularly tight end Travis Kelce. Until this fall, all NFL fans respected him, but few knew of him outside of the league. Things changed when it was revealed that Kelsey was dating the wildly popular Taylor Swift. And now there will be so much attention to his person during the Super Bowl that American bookmakers have even started taking bets on whether he will propose to the singer after the match.
Bet on the Super Bowl with 1xBetSan Francisco is led by the player no one believed in
Kansas City's opponent is San Francisco, whose story is as Hollywood-like as it gets. The leader of the Chiefs is a talent of the generation, but the Californians were led to the Super Bowl by their quarterback Brock Purdy. And if he wins the meeting, he'll definitely be made into a movie.
The thing is, Purdy is a total underdog. In 2022, San Francisco took him at No. 262 overall in the draft. This isn't just low - Brock was the very last player picked at this event of all. Which earned him the temporary title of "Mr. Irrelevant."
However, picking Purdy so late is more of a scouting mistake. Just a year before his draft, experts believed he would be at least a top-50 pick in his position. But the quarterback didn't really perform well in his final college season, plus the paradigm of the club managers shifted in these years.
At the time of Purdy's pick, general managers and scouts started thinking that quarterbacks had to be physical aces. That is, throw the ball far, run fast, and have a powerful body in general. Purdy doesn't have that, but he has something that's hard to see during tests - quick thinking. Purdy doesn't throw bombs, but he is very quick to make decisions and read the defense correctly.
Bet on the Super Bowl with 1xBetThat's why during training camp after the draft, the coaching staff, led by Kyle Shanahan, started to realize that Pardy would be the future of the team. Even though he was only the team's fourth quarterback at the time. Last season, Brock had to step in on short notice after the injuries of the main passers, but he looked so great that he carried the team to the conference finals. However, he suffered a severe elbow injury in the first few plays of the game, and the team lost.
The injury was so serious that the club did not believe Purdy would recover in time. Because of this, they even considered inviting Tom Brady for a season or two. But Purdy made a triumphant return and was considered a prime candidate for MVP for most of the season.
Picking Purdy last is still a jackpot for San Francisco, as he gets a very small salary of only $900,000 a year before taxes. And living in California is so expensive that the quarterback still has to live with his teammates. But that small salary makes it possible to use the rest of the available budget on other players. And they are also good.
For example, the league's best running back, Christian McCaffrey, and one of the best offensive tackles in the league, Trent Williams, play for San Francisco. Besides, Purdy has great receivers Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle. Some Americans may think that it wasn't Purdy who got the team to the Super Bowl, but the team carried him. However, the club members and former quarterbacks of the league strongly disagree.
Bet on the Super Bowl with 1xBetHow will the game end?
Predicting the outcome of the meeting in a few days is almost impossible, as there is no clear favorite. In 2020, the winner of the Super Bowl between Kansas City and San Francisco was decided only in the last minute of the game. Plus, there were a few referee mistakes that affected the outcome back then.
However, the biggest challenge for the Chiefs is keeping the opposing offense from running wild. In his short NFL career, Purdy has won every game where San Francisco has scored more than 21 points. So, statistically, Kansas City doesn't stand a chance in a "shootout".
But the current Chiefs defense is just about the best it's been in years. In the conference finals, it stopped Baltimore, which bookmakers considered the favorite for the season. And San Francisco made it to the Super Bowl due to two hard-fought victories. In the conference finals, the team rebounded from a 17-point deficit.
Either way, the audience is in for a historic matchup. Either Mahomes' ultimate transformation into a great player, and the happy Kelce and Swift, or the movie history of Purdy and all of San Francisco. And it looks like the teams will meet in the Finals more than once in the coming years.
