A Half Century of Super Bowls

Peter M. Hopsicker is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Head of the Division of Education, Human Development, and Social Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, Altoona, USA. He is also a member of the Graduate Faculty of the Department of Kinesiology and a member of the Executive Committee of the Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Pennsylvania State University. Mark Dyreson is a Professor of Kinesiology and History at Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA; the Director of Research and Educational Programs at the Penn State Center for the Study of Sports in Society; the Managing Editor of the International Journal of the History of Sport; a former President of the North American Society for Sport History; a Fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology; and the author of several books and numerous articles on the history of sport.

Introduction: Super Bowl Sunday: A National Holiday and a Global Curiosity 1. The Super Bowl at 50 or L 2. ‘Superbowling’: Using the Super Bowl’s Yearly Commentary to Explore the Evolution of a Sporting Spectacle in the American Consciousness 3. Fifty Years of Super Bowl Commercials, Thirty-Two Years of Spectacular Consumption 4. ‘Super Bore’: The Canadian Media and the Grey Cup-Super Bowl Comparison 5. Amerika: The Super Bowl and German Imagination 6. A Century of British Readings of America through American Football: From the Fin de Siècle to the Super Bowl 7. ‘We Will Try Again, Again, Again to Make It Bigger’: Japan, American Football, and the Super Bowl in the Past, Present, and Future 8. The Super Bowl as a Television Spectacle: Global Designs, Glocal Niches, and Parochial Patterns