• The Super Bowl is an American phenomenon. Despite its completely unavoidable presence in the U.S., Super Bowl Sunday is pretty much a nonentity outside of North America, where soccer is king. Even so, it’s still a much bigger moneymaker than any other single sporting event. Here’s a breakdown of how this works out.

Not-so-super viewership

• 106
  million people watched all of last year’s Super Bowl telecast, almost entirely in the U.S. and Canada
• 109
  million people watched all of last year’s UEFA Champions League final, a hugely popular soccer match

Super brand value

• $420M the Super Bowl’s value as an brand, making it the largest brand of all
• $230M the Olympics’ value, despite the fact it’s a much larger event
• $120M the World Cup’s value; it routinely tops the Super Bowl in total viewers

Super ad rates

• $312 million in Anheuser-Busch ads alone since 1990

• $3
  million the amount NBC charged for 69 ad spots last year
• $2.8
  million the amount CBS is able to charge per ad this year source

• Big game, big profits. Despite the fact that it’s just a single game, it often can top the advertising value of both the the World Series and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, which each take place over multiple games.

So why isn’t it spreading?

• complication American football is a much more complicated sport than soccer and basketball, which both have easily and quickly spread into China, for example. Blame the penalties.
• mediocrity The NFL had been trying to tap the European market for years with a secondary league which folded in 2007. Now the NFL has real games in Europe, a better strategy. source

• 1978 last time New Orleans had a white mayor (Mitch Landrieu won the race last night) source
• never last time New Orleans had a team in the Super Bowl (the Saints play the Colts later today) source

• $150,000 for a crazy tie-in source

• Dude, you’ve come so far from simply being an accidental internet celebrity. Now you’re turning our alma mater into an entire crew of Numa Numa fans. This is nice and awesome, and way less d-baggy than the other viral video that caught our eye tonight. Go Gary Brolsma! Way to be awesome, dude!source

• Baby I might have a break down im so stressed. baby i might need to go to the hospital. baby whats wrong w[ith] me i can hardly breath[e].
• Sahel Kazemi • In a text exchange between her and former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair the day before they were both found dead in a murder-suicide. Kazemi sounded increasingly desperate in the messages, while McNair was getting annoyed by the constant contact due to the fact that he was with his children. McNair, who was married with children, was seeing a second girl on top of Kazemi. • source

• There’s a good two minutes of buildup before the pretty awesome payoff. Trust us, stick with it. Stadium chair-on-referee violence beckons.source

• Cleveland Browns star Braylon Edwards was accused of assaulting a good friend of Cleveland Cavaliers star Lebron James outside of a nightclub. source

• Braylon Edwards was traded to the NY Jets; many think that it was because of the incident. Yes, Lebron is powerful enough to get a football player traded. source

• monday source

• wednesday source

• turning forty Lordy Lordy, Brett Favre’s age; despite that, he easily led the Minnesota Vikings over his former team, the Green Bay Packers, last night; bravo, bro source