Editorial: Not your average football game

Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.

There are many reasons more than 130 million people will crowd around televisions for today's Super Bowl XL - some of which include actually watching the Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers play football.

But in its 40-year history the Super Bowl has become so much more than a football game. There are the parties, the wagers and, of course, the ads. The 10 most-watched programs in television history are all Super Bowls, according to the official Super Bowl XL Web site. Those are winning odds for advertisers.

And they are ads we remember. Who can forget watching a sledgehammer hurling toward Big Brother in the 1984 ad that introduced the first Macintosh computer? And plenty of Monday morning office chatter in 2000 revolved around Electric Data Systems' ad showing grizzled cowboys wrangling house cats.

But other fans may find it difficult to tear themselves away from the food table long enough to watch the game or the ads. The nonprofit Calorie Control Council says Americans will eat about 30 million pounds of snacks today, making it second only to Thanksgiving in terms of the amounts of food and calories consumed. The nation's Super Bowl menu is expected to include 11.3 million pounds of potato chips containing 27 billion calories and 1.8 billion grams of fat.

And of course, it's not a Super Bowl without a little friendly wagering - or, a lot. Internet sports books operators expect to handle at least $600 million in bets on today's game, while Nevada's sports books could see an estimated $91 million in wagers. Las Vegas is expected to host more visiting Super Bowl fans than Detroit's Ford Field, where the game will actually be played.

For many reasons, the Super Bowl has become a great American tradition. So switch on the tube and pass the popcorn - all 3.8 million pounds of it.