The most super Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is by far the most famous thing about American football. It typically averages around 100 million viewers every year, but it has been known to get upwards of 150 million. Needless to say, it is an extremely popular viewing experience. However, in recent years, those numbers have been declining drastically. The 2021 Super Bowl had the lowest number of viewers since 2007 with a mere 94.7 million. Despite what one might think, the answer to fixing this dwindling viewership is quite easy. 

Simply put, the current Super Bowl is very boring. After all, it's still just regular football. I mean, come on! It’s called the Super Bowl – let’s make it super! Thousands of people say the only reason they watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials, so let’s make the game more interesting than the commercials. There are a few ways I think we can accomplish this:

Have more than two teams play at once.

There are countless teams out there whose fans are devastated year after year by their utter failure to win any games. In this new and improved Super Bowl, we’ll give the two worst teams of the season a chance to redeem themselves by playing against each other at the same time as the two best teams. The two games would be played on intersecting fields that form a cross with one another. All the rules remain the same, but whatever happens at the intersection of the fields is fair game for all four teams. 

Make the field slant inwards. 

We can all agree that it isn’t very hard to run in a straight line. To solve this lack of a challenge, the field for a Super Bowl game should be slanted on both sides by 45 degrees, so when players are running toward the opposing team’s endzone, they must do so uphill. 

Add additional footballs every time the game goes into overtime.

If it's good enough for hockey, it's good enough for football. 

These are just a few of the ways the Super Bowl could be made more interesting. If one so desired, we could always incorporate elements from the ancient world to spice things up. The Romans had the right idea, and knew that you could never go wrong by throwing a few lions into the mix. But perhaps America isn’t quite prepared for a Bowl that super. For now, I believe that with a few extra teams, a slanted field, the hockey rulebook and determination, we can turn the Super Bowl into the viewing experience it was always meant to be.

By Caleb Schaber