Taylor Swift, Roman numerals and why it's called a bowl: A Super Bowl 58 primer for non-sports fans

Even if you're not a sports fan, you know what the Super Bowl is. It's hard not to, in the U.S., when the approaching day is met with a level of eager anticipation just below Christmas.

You may even be more aware of it this year, since mega popstar Taylor Swift started showing up at football games to support her new partner, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, with relentless coverage across all forms of media, nonstop online relationship analysis and bizarre conspiracy theories.

But even without that, you may have friends, family members or coworkers who have been getting increasingly distracted the last month or so, and your local Pubix started stacking up beer and cheese dip displays.

If you want to know generally what they're talking about so you're not completely lost in the conversations, here's a quick primer.

What is the Super Bowl?

The biggest American football game and television event of the year.

Once upon a time there were multiple competing football leagues. In 1966, rivals National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL) agreed to have a big playoff game between the best teams of each league (think the Justice League vs the Avengers, but with a football) and in 1967 they held the first AFL–NFL World Championship Game, continuing the fine American tradition of "world" championships limited to the United States.

Within a few years, the game became known as the Super Bowl and it just got bigger. And bigger.

The two leagues merged in 1970 to become the current NFL and then split into two groups roughly along the same lines as the original leagues and they still battle it out at the end of the season.

The winning team gets the Vince Lombardi trophy, named after the coach of the Green Bay Packers, the team that won the first two Super Bowls.

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Who's playing at Super Bowl LVIII in 2024?

The Kansas City Chiefs (AFC winner) are facing off against the San Fransisco 49ers (NFC winner).

The Chiefs will be wearing red helmets, if that helps. The 49ers will be the ones in the gold helmets.

Why is it called the Super Bowl, anyway?

Big football playoffs started to be referred to as "bowls" after the Pasadena Tournament of Roses in 1923 was held at the new Rose Bowl Stadium which, yes, looked like a bowl. (Not everything in football is complicated).

That particular game became known as the Rose Bowl, and other football contests — the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and more — started using the name to exploit the Rose Bowl's popularity because marketing was a thing then, too.

But the first Big Game was the "AFL–NFL World Championship Game," which didn't exactly roll off the tongue. Lamar Hunt, then-owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, called the game the Super Bowl in meetings and when talking to the press.

In a memo to NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, he wrote, “I have kiddingly called it the Super Bowl, which obviously can be improved upon.”

The commissioner didn't like it. But the name caught on in newspapers and with fans (and advertisers) and by the third year "Super Bowl" had become the official name.

Hunt later said he was probably thinking of the Super Ball toy his daughter was playing with, which is why (this is true) if you go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame you'll see a toy rubber ball proudly on display.

Super Bowl history: Why do they call it the 'Super Bowl'?

Why do Super Bowls use Roman numerals? What does LVIII mean?

To make it feel like a gladiatorial event. Seriously.

That was Lamar Hunt's idea, too. According to the NFL: "The Roman numerals were adopted to clarify any confusion that may occur because the NFL Championship Game — the Super Bowl — is played in the year following a chronologically recorded season. Numerals I through IV were added later for the first four Super Bowls."

Hunt liked the pomp and gravitas the Roman numerals added (see: LIV Golf) and felt it helped establish this unknown new game as a major event.

Remember hearing about Roman numerals in high school and then never ever thinking about them again, except maybe while watching reading the tiny movie credits? L stands for 50, V means five, and I is one, so this means this year's game is Super Bowl 58.

Why not just call it Super Bowl 58? Tradition! However, it's starting to shift to the number everywhere but the official name and logo because there are a lot more Google searches for Super Bowl 58 and marketing is still a thing.

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How many people watch the Super Bowl?

It is impossible to overestimate the popularity and cultural impact of the Super Bowl. Last year's Super Bowl had more than 115 million viewers, making it the most-watched Super Bowl of all time and the second-most-watched TV broadcast ever, after the 1969 Apollo moon landing.

This year may break all the records, According to a survey from the National Retail Federation. 200.5 million adults plan to watch, while spending $17.3 billion on Super Bowl-related things. (Only 44% said the game was the most important part, though, with 19% watching for the halftime show and 18% tuning in for the commercials.)

Blame Taylor for that. Marketing site Zeta Global found Americans' interest in the game was up 169% over last year and interest in the commercials was up 903%. Viewership of all NFL games was up 7% this season and viewership among 12- to 17-year-old girls was up 8.1%.

It's also one of the biggest sources of absenteeism in the U.S. In a 2021 report, the Workforce Institute estimated that 16.1 million employees said they planned to miss work on the Monday after Super Bowl LV, with 8.8 million taking paid time off and 4.4 million admitting they were already planning their sick day.

According to Nielsen, a company that has been measuring television audiences since the 50s, 23 of the 30 most-watched single-network television broadcasts of all time have been Super Bowls. Michael Jackson's Super Bowl halftime show was No. 15 all by itself.

This explains the ads.

Why are Super Bowl ads so popular?

For a lot of people, the whole purpose of the Super Bowl each year is to provide a venue for the Super Bowl ads.

Because of the massive audience, networks can (and do) command the highest rates for advertising. In return, advertisers take the opportunity to present their strangest, funniest, sexiest, most heartwarming and above all most-sharable ads before, during and after the Super Bowl.

The ads, often shot with production values rivaling movies and filled with A-list celebrities, have become a cultural icon of their own, with people searching for the commercials on YouTube and media sites.

This year Fox is charging $7 million for a 30-second ad, according to Front Office Sports and Statista, or $233,000 a second, and fans can expect to see a new announcement from Reese's Cups, Lionel Messi drinking and dancing with Michelob, Christopher Walken impersonators for BMW, Scarlet Johansson for M&Ms, Chris Pratt for Pringles, a mini-Friends reunion for Uber Eats, LL Cool J and Coors Light, Arnold Schwarzenegger in an explosion-filled commercial for State Farm, Jenna Ortega promoting a new Doritos flavor, Tina Fey for Booking.com, Sir Anthony Hopkins hawking STōK Cold Brew (and Welsh football underdogs Wrexham AFC), a Bud Light genie, the traditional heartwarming Budweiser Clydesdale ad, Jason Momoa paying tribute to the 1983 movie "Flashdance."

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When is the 2024 Super Bowl? How can I watch it?

This year’s Super Bowl will take place on Sunday, Feb. 11, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Kickoff is at 6:30 p.m. EST but with no end of pregame coverage before then. It will be aired on CBS and Nickelodeon (yes, Nickelodeon) and streamed on YouTube TV, Fubo TV, Paramount+

Since 2022, Super Bowls are played on the second Sunday in February.

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Who's performing at Super Bowl 58 in 2024?

Even people who hate football will tune in for the halftime show, which famously brings in some of the world's biggest stars for the biggest one-show audience most of them will ever have. Previous halftime performers have included the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, U2, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Madonna, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Katy Perry, Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, and Prince.

This year, "Queen of Country" Reba McIntire will perform the national anthem. Post Malone is expected to sing “America the Beautiful” and Andra Day will be singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before kickoff.

The halftime show will feature R&B legend Usher, who is expected to perform for around 13-15 minutes.

What will everyone be talking about in Super Bowl 58?

Every Super Bowl has added drama and historical significance on top of the actual game, and this one has a few doozies. Here are some things you can toss into the conversation over the chicken wings to sound knowledgeable.

• This year marks a Super Bowl rematch between Chiefs and the 49ers. (The Chiefs won in 2019.)

• If the Chiefs win this time, they'll be the first repeat Super Bowl champions in nearly two decades.

• If the 49ers prevail, Coach Kyle Shanahan will get his first Super Bowl win after some spectacular near-misses. This makes the fourth head coach rematch (Shanahan vs. Chiefs coach Andy Reid) in Super Bowl history.

• The battle of the quarterbacks: the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes is the reigning NFL and Super Bowl MVP, considered maybe the best of all time already at just 28 years old. For the Niners, Brock Purdy was "Mr. Irrelevant," taken with the very last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft (262nd pick overall) but he's succeeded beyond anyone's belief, winning every playoff game but one for two seasons and that one only because he injured his elbow.

• Will there be controversy again this year over the singing of the Black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing"?

• And all eyes will be on a person who isn't even on the field. Will Taylor Swift make it to the game in time after flying from her Tokyo concert? Will Kelce propose? Will she suddenly endorse President Joe Biden as part of a deep cover psyop from the Pentagon? Tune in and see!

What is the Superb Owl?

The annual Superb Owl migration has two sources.

Every year, as the big game approaches, people googling for information often put the space in the wrong place and searches for "superb owl" spike in the beginning of February, providing puzzled football fans everything they ever wanted to know about the nocturnal avian creatures. In previous years, Google has capitalized on this, offering Super Bowl information anyway with owls added to team logos.

And the NFL cracks down hard on any sources (besides media and sports coverage) that try to use their heavily trademarked, copyrighted "Super Bowl" name for, well, practically everything. Advertisers trying to get the attention of football fans instead call it The Big Game or the Championship Game to avoid dark-suited people with menacing briefcases.

In 2014, Stephen Colbert used "Superb Owl" coverage in his ongoing sports segments on "The Colbert Report" but it was already a social media inside joke for people mocking the NFL's heavy-handed cease & desist letters. The "Superb Owl" Reddit group (/r/superbowl), created in 2011 and now boasting over 400,000 members, limits all posts to be owl-related. "Superb Owl" was even a Jeopardy category in 2019.

Now every February your social media feeds will slowly fill with owl pictures. Just accept it.

What are Super Bowl squares? How do Super Bowl squares work? How do you play?

When the biggest football game of the year just isn't interesting enough, you can add your own game to it. Super Bowl squares is random, gives you something to talk about during the slow bits, and you can win money at it even if you don't know anything about the game.

Super Bowl squares is a game played with a 10x10 grid of 100 squares with a different team's name on the left side and the top. Each square has a price. If it's a buck per, $5 lets you put your initials on five squares, $10 gets you 10, and so on. At this point no one has any idea what numbers will end up on which square so no actual skill or football knowledge is required.

Now randomly assign the numbers 0-9 to the tops of all the columns and the side of each of the rows (just pick 'em, or use one of the many random number generators online). You now have a grid where every square is the intersection of two numbers.

At the end of the game, check the score. For example, if you initialed a box that lined up at Chiefs 6 and 49ers 2, and the score ended in Chiefs something-6 and the 49ers something-2 (only the last number of the score counts), you win the pot. You also can split it up by checking the score at the end of every quarter with part of the payout going to that winner.

You can get a printable sheet for Super Bowl LVIII here.

Dan Rorabaugh, USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida Audience Team, contributed to this article.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Super Bowl 58 primer for non-sports fans: Roman numerals, Taylor Swift