The Super Bowl is the annual league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game has been played on the second Sunday in February. Prior Super Bowls were played on Sundays in early to mid-January from 1967 to 1978, late January from 1979 to 2003, and the first Sunday of February from 2004 to 2021. Winning teams are awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named after the eponymous coach who won the first two Super Bowls. Because the NFL restricts the use of its "Super Bowl" trademark, it is frequently referred to as the "big game" or other generic terms by non-sponsoring corporations. The day that the game is held, is commonly referred to as "Super Bowl Sunday" or simply "Super Sunday".
Monday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that primarily broadcast on Monday nights. It was originally broadcast on ABC from 1970 to 2005, before moving exclusively to sister network ESPN in 2006, which remains the main channel for the broadcast. In 2020, MNF returned to ABC in select simulcasts with ESPN, and in 2022, it began featuring select exclusive ABC telecasts. In addition, ESPN2 has aired alternate telecasts of selected games since 2020 as the Manningcast, while ESPN+ has streamed MNF simulcasts in the United States since 2021.
The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games in the United States are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any sport in the world. Television brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, National Football League broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income.
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its dedicated national sports cable channels. Formerly operating as "a service of NBC News", it broadcasts a diverse array of sports events, including the French Open, the Premier League, the IndyCar Series, NASCAR, the National Football League (NFL), Notre Dame Fighting Irish college football, the Olympic Games, professional golf, the Tour de France and Thoroughbred racing, among others. Other programming from outside producers – such as coverage of the Ironman Triathlon – is also presented on the network through NBC Sports. With Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011, its own cable sports networks were aligned with NBC Sports into a part of the division known as the NBC Sports Group.
The NFL on NBC is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that are produced by NBC Sports, and televised on the NBC television network and the Peacock streaming service in the United States.
NBC Sunday Night Football is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which opened that year's preseason. NBC took over the rights to the Sunday prime time game telecasts from ESPN, which carried the broadcasts from 1987 to 2005. At the same time, ESPN began broadcasting Monday Night Football when it was dropped from sister network ABC. Previously, NBC had aired American Football League (AFL), and later American Football Conference (AFC), games from 1965 until 1997, when CBS took over those rights.
Levi's Stadium is an American football stadium located in Santa Clara, California, just west of the much larger city of San Jose, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has served as the home venue for the National Football League (NFL)'s San Francisco 49ers since 2014. The stadium is located approximately 40 miles (64 km) south of San Francisco. It is named after Levi Strauss & Co., which purchased naming rights in 2013.
National television broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games first aired on ABC from 1948 to 1951. Between 1970 and 2005, Monday Night Football aired exclusively on ABC. In 2006, ESPN took over as the exclusive rights holder to Monday Night Football, and the ABC Sports division was merged into ESPN Inc. by parent company Disney. Afterward, ABC did not broadcast any game from the NFL, whether exclusive or a simulcast from ESPN, until they simulcasted an NFL Wild Card playoff game in 2016. ABC would then return to Monday Night Football in 2020, when they aired three games as simulcasts from ESPN.
The NFL International Series is a series of American football games during the National Football League (NFL) regular season that are played outside the United States. Since 2024, the series has three sub-series: the NFL London Games in the United Kingdom, which have been in place since 2007; the NFL Germany Games in multiple cities, the NFL Brazil Game in São Paulo, and the future NFL Madrid Game in Spain.
In the United States, sports are televised on various broadcast networks, national and specialty sports cable channels, and regional sports networks. U.S. sports rights are estimated to be worth a total of $22.42 billion in 2019, about 44 percent of the total worldwide sports media market. U.S. networks are willing to pay a significant amount of money for television sports contracts because it attracts large amounts of viewership; live sport broadcasts accounted for 44 of the 50 list of most watched television broadcasts in the United States in 2016.
The history of the National Football League on television documents the long history of the National Football League on television. The NFL, along with boxing and professional wrestling, was a pioneer of sports broadcasting during a time when baseball and college football were more popular than professional football. Due to the NFL understanding television at an earlier time, they were able to surpass Major League Baseball in the 1960s as the most popular sport in the United States. Today, NFL broadcasting contracts are among the most valuable in the world.
Super Bowl LVI was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2021 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champion Los Angeles Rams defeated the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Cincinnati Bengals, 23–20. The game was played on February 13, 2022, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the home stadium of the Rams, marking the second consecutive and second overall Super Bowl with a team playing and winning in its home stadium.
Super Bowl LVIII was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2023 season. In a rematch of Super Bowl LIV from four years earlier, the American Football Conference (AFC) champion and defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers 25–22 in overtime. The Chiefs became the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowls since the New England Patriots in 2004. The game was played on February 11, 2024, at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada. This was the first Super Bowl to be held in the state of Nevada. It marked the third straight year that the Super Bowl had been played in the Western United States, following host cities Inglewood, California, in 2022 and Glendale, Arizona, in 2023.
On March 12, 1990, at the NFL's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, the league new ratified four-year television agreements for the 1990 to 1993 seasons involving ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN and TNT. The contracts totaled US$3.6 billion, the largest package in television history. This contract saw each network having rights to one Super Bowl telecast as part of the package. The fourth Super Bowl (XXVIII) was up for a separate sealed bid. NBC won the bid, and since they were last in the rotation for Super Bowl coverage in the regular contract, ended up with two straight Super Bowls. CBS is the only other network to televise two Super Bowls in a row. NBC, which had held XXVII, was the only network to bid on XXVIII. Previously, the league alternated the Super Bowl broadcast among its broadcast network partners, except for Super Bowl I; CBS broadcast Super Bowl II, then the league rotated the broadcast between CBS and NBC until 1985 when ABC entered the rotation when that network broadcast Super Bowl XIX.
Super Bowl LIX is the upcoming American football championship game of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2024 season. The game is scheduled to be played on February 9, 2025, at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.
From 2014 to 2022, CBS, NBC, and Fox, as well as cable television's ESPN, paid a combined total of US$20.4 billion will pay $39.6 billion for exactly the same broadcast rights. The NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. In 2017, the NFL games attracted the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $699,602 for NBC Sunday Night Football, $550,709 for Thursday Night Football (NBC), and $549,791 for Thursday Night Football (CBS).
Super Bowl LXI is the planned American football championship game of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2026 season. The game is scheduled to be played on February 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. This would be the ninth Super Bowl hosted by the Greater Los Angeles area, and the second at this venue, the first being Super Bowl LVI in 2022.
The National Football League playoffs for the 2023 season began on January 13, 2024, and concluded with Super Bowl LVIII on February 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers. This was the first postseason since 1998 not to feature either Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, as they both played their final NFL games in the 2015 and 2022 seasons, respectively.
