WASHINGTON — Aside from being a marker of American culture, Super Bowl Sundays are one of the most-watched sporting events in the world. Even non-football fans can enjoy the extravagant halftime shows and the highly-anticipated commercials that air during the big game.
Not only is it a big day for television, it’s also the second-largest day for food consumption in the U.S., behind Thanksgiving Day.
But why is the Super Bowl always played on Sunday?
Ever since the championship game’s inception on Jan. 15, 1967, the Super Bowl has always been played on Sundays.
For years, fans of the sporting event have signed online petitions to move the Super Bowl to Saturday.
One of the more recent attempts to try and convince the league to change the big game was a Florida high school senior’s petition, which received over 144,000 signatures on Change.org.
Mondays after the Super Bowl are notorious for the number of employees calling out of work.
In 2021, a survey by the Workforce Institute found 16.1 million employees said they planned to miss work the day after the Super Bowl. More than 4 million admitted they planned to call in sick even though they weren’t actually feeling ill.
One reason the National Football League is adamant about keeping the Super Bowl on Sundays is due to TV ratings, according to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
During a 2018 interview on “The Kyle Brandt Football Experience,” Goodell said it really comes down to TV ratings.
“The reason we haven’t done it in the past is simply just from an audience standpoint. The audiences on Sunday night are so much larger,” Goodell said in 2018. “Fans want to have the best opportunity to be able to see the game and we want to give that to them, so Sunday night is a better night.”
To date, the most-watched NFL championship game was Super Bowl XLIX (49) in 2015 between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, which had 114 million views.
Kick off for this year’s Super Bowl is set for Sunday, Feb. 12 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, around 6:30 p.m. Eastern.