HUMOR SERIES | SUPER BOWL

History of the Super Bowl

A humorous look at the religious holiday

Bill Petro
ILLUMINATION
Published in
7 min readFeb 10, 2024

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Image: Wikipedia

The Super Bowl™ is a territory acquisition athletic contest played on a fixed agrarian grid using — as a token — an inflated porcine prolate spheroid.

Some will say it is the most important holiday of the year in America. While it is ostensibly a secular holiday, others argue it is truly a religious holiday. And there are several reasons why. Super Bowl has:

  • A liturgy
  • Multiple prayers
  • Special foods
  • Formal rituals that have developed throughout history
  • 100 million celebrants in front of their TV for worship

It used to be that commercials were the part of the worship service intended for taking a bio break, but not recently. The commercials are now the service’s most influential part (for at least 22% of viewers); indeed, some (like me) watch the Super Bowl specifically for the advertisements.

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Bill Petro
ILLUMINATION

Writer, historian, technologist. Former Silicon Valley tech exec. Author of fascinating articles on history, tech, pop culture, & travel. https://billpetro.com