3 Super Bowl Fun Facts

Want to amaze your friends at that Super Bowl party you're going to? All you have to do is hit 'em with some Super Bowl math fun facts. Keep on reading to learn what they are!

By Math Dude Jason Marshall

For illustration purposes only.

Josh Hallett *Flickr* (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Although most of us don't spend much time thinking about math during the Super Bowl, the truth is that the big game is full of it. This shouldn't come as a surprise since, as we've discovered over and over again, math is always all around us…if we take the time to see it.

While there are no doubt dozens of good mathematical questions that might come to mind while watching the Super Bowl, today we're going to talk about 3 of them:

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Why is the phrase "Super Bowl" always accompanied by a Roman numeral?
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So go ahead and put on your favorite team's jersey, start limbering up, and stay tuned to arm yourself with a few festive math fun facts that you can throw around at the Super Bowl party you're heading to this weekend!

Super Bowls and Roman Numerals
On Sunday, February 2, 2014, the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks will be playing each other in Super Bowl XLVIII—aka, Super Bowl 48. Yes, in case you didn't know it, the Roman numerals that you always see after the phrase "Super Bowl" are there to indicate that this is the 48th such big game to take place in the history of the National Football League (the first was in 1967).

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