American football played

American football, the sport with the most fans in the United States, reaches its climax this Sunday, when the San Francisco 49ers face the Kansas City Chiefs in the city of Miami .

With more than 100 million people on the screen, it is the most followed television event in the US, which also ignites passions in Mexico, Canada and other (few) regions of the world.

If you do not understand the rules of American football well and do not want to miss the actions of this sport, you can follow this explanation of its key points.

You will see that, contrary to popular belief, it is not complicated at all.

The match between two teams - of 11 players each - is played on a 100-yard court divided into segments of 10 , with an oval or ovoid ball.

At each end is a end zone and a three-post goal where field goals are scored.

Basic notion 1: the goal of each team is to get the most points by scoring ( touchdowns ) and field goals ( field goals ).

Bottom Line 2: Each team on their offensive turn has 4 opportunities ( downs ) to advance at least 10 yards ; if he succeeds, he has another four opportunities again.

Bottom line 3: If you can't get to the opposing end zone or advance 10 yards, the offensive team must deliver the ball to the opposing team with a punt (or in more unusual cases, a short kick).

Bottom Line 4: The quarterback or quarterback directs his team's plays and has several options for moving the ball:

• can throw the ball at a fellow receiver with an air pass,
• hand it over to a broker to advance overland,
• run the same to gain yards,
• letting a kicker clear or attempt a field goal .

Basic notion 5: It is played in four times (quarters) of 15 minutes each and a break after the first two. The clock stops if the ball leaves the field, or if a team requests a free time, or if the referees mark a fault, among other factors.

If a team makes it to the opposing end zone - the ball just crosses the goal line an inch - it receives 6 points for the touchdown .

He gets 1 extra point if the team kicker gets the ball to go through the Y-shaped arc .

A field goal gives 3 points as long as the ball goes through the inside of the posts.

There are other more unusual cases in which points are obtained, but it is only enough to know that a "2 point conversion" occurs when a team instead of kicking the extra point decides to make a move to cross the goal again: instead of 1 point gets 2.

Knowing the basics and scores, you can follow the game with no problem. But if you want to know more in detail, we explain.

The field goal attempt almost always occurs when the team is in its fourth opportunity to advance 10 yards and considers it unlikely to reach the goal.

Like many things in American football, this is a matter of strategy.

A team will only make the decision to attempt a field goal when it considers it to be at a sufficient distance for its kicker to do so.

Otherwise the kicker will choose to clear the ball.

The team that has possession of the ball may suddenly lose it when two events occur that are usually very dramatic.

• Interception: When the quarterback throws an air pass to his receiver, rivals will seek to steal it before it reaches its destination; if they succeed, they will have intercepted it and try to run in the opposite direction to score.

• Loose ball: a player in possession of the ball may lose it due to an oversight or a tackle by the rival, which generates a loose ball situation ; all the players will try their best to keep the ball in a very spectacular fight.

On and off the court there are multiple referees or umpires who have the power to flag a rule violation.

They use a yellow scarf to indicate that there was a foul and the chief referee - identifiable because he wears a white cap - communicates the refereeing decisions through a microphone .

Few of this Sunday's Super Bowl viewers will have had a memory of the uncertain and relatively humble start to what is now America's most sought-after sports show.

Half a century ago, on January 15, 1967, two teams from the interior of the country faced each other, the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

They lacked the typical charisma of today's squads, the match was organized into races and not all tickets were sold.

Almost nothing that happened around that first "final" football match would give any indication of the grandiose, billionaire, exaggerated, and sometimes sloppy show that combines sports, entertainment and excessive commerce that is the Super Bowl .

To give you an idea of ​​what that first Super Bowl was like and to compare it with what they have seen in recent editions or what they are going to see this Sunday, BBC Mundo presents 5 curiosities from the opening game.

The organizers did not know what to call the event that would define the absolute champion of that year of American football.

Back then there were two leagues, the American League AFL and the National League NFL .

They had been rival organizations competing for player recruitment, for fans, and for audience, but none of their teams had faced each other.

The championship game between the NFL Green Bay Packers and the AFL Kansas City Chiefs was the result of the merger that was agreed between the two leagues to consolidate their business interests.

Various names were proposed, such as "The Big One" and "The Game".

But they finally settled on the unsexy title of "AFL-NFL World Championship Game . "

He was the then owner of the Chiefs, Lamar Hunt, who took the word "bowl" or "bowl" (because the stadiums where football is played have that shape) and combined it with "super", inspired by an intense ball rebound and very popular from the time with which his son called "Super Ball" played.

Two more years passed before "Super Bowl" became the name of the great event.

It becomes difficult to understand, considering that it is one of the most sought-after sports shows in the USA. and that an average ticket today costs several thousand dollars , not to mention the price that can be obtained in resale.

In addition, several cities are fighting for the right to host the "Super Bowl", whose organization can inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy, thanks to the visit of thousands of fans and journalists who arrive for the game and the countless parties and other associated activities.

Each paid $ 1 million for the broadcast rights, and although the footage from the match was produced by CBS, both networks had their own broadcasters, analysts, cameras, and other broadcast equipment.

CBS and NBC fought for the audience with the same intensity with which the teams played soccer on the field.

After the intermission, NBC was broadcasting commercials when the Packers kicked the serve to start the second half and the play had to be canceled and repeated so that the NBC audience did not miss the serve.

That was the only joint broadcast of the Super Bowl.

Currently CBS, NBC and Fox take turnsfor the broadcast rights to the matches of the season and the final , so s which is paid about $ 3,000 million, according to the magazine Forbes .

Each league had its official ball. The NFL used the Wilson brand "The Duke" oval ball model in its games.

The AFL, for its part, preferred the J5-V manufactured by Spalding, which was easier to pass because it was slightly thinner and longer.

The concession that was reached was that, when a team took the offensive they would play with their customary ball , so there were two marks in the match.

The Packers attacked with the Wilson and the Chiefs with the Spalding.

Wilson won that competition . And des d and then , yours is the official ball used in every Super Bowl .

American football is hardly a part of the show in a Super Bowl.

Equally attractive, if not more energetic and exciting, is the musical spectacle that takes over the field during halftime.

The great stars of the moment participate in this, as Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, the Rolling Stones and Shakira did lately.

In 1967, however, it was the b andas the University of Arizona College and Grambing the enlivened the intermediate plus acrobatics team d and the local school in Anaheim .

Part of the show included the launch of 10,000 helium balloons and hundreds of pigeons were released which, it was said later, left more than one memory on the heads of fans.

The only thing that the organizers of that first championship between the ALF and the NFL aspired to was that their audience was ever superior to the Major League Baseball World Series.

Little would they imagine then that it would reach the mythical proportions of the spectacle that it is today.

In the 50-year history of the Super Bowl, the most-watched annual sporting event in the United States that features a long-awaited musical performance at halftime, symphony orchestras never played a leading role.

If anything, they served as instrumental support for famous artists in genres like pop and rock.

The story changed this Sunday with the participation of Venezuelan director Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles youth orchestra in the middle of the grand finale of the American Football league, for which a television audience of more than 150 million people was anticipated.

The beverage brand Pepsi took over the production of the interim four years ago - previously in charge of the Professional Football League (NFL) - and has since set the stage for the most recognized pop genre artists. , like Madonna, Beyoncé and Katy Perry.

In a statement sent to BBC Mundo, Gustavo Dudamel said he was "very grateful" to Chris Martin , the vocalist of the British band Coldplay, for suggesting to the NFL and Pepsi executives that they include their orchestra in the recital.

And it is that the singer of the group chosen to liven up the intermission has repeatedly declared his "admiration" for the current conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (LA Phil, for its acronym in English).

But that's not just why Dudamel was in the Super Bowl, according to Los Angeles Times classical music critic Mark Swed.

According to Swed, "since Leonard Bernstein, Dudamel is the first director to become a true public figure" in the US.

"He has crossed the gap between classical and pop music . The award-winning (Amazon) television series 'Mozart in the Jungle' was inspired by him and directed the opening and closing of the new 'Star Wars' movie. "The Los Angeles Times reporter noted.

The Venezuelan conductor started music at a young age in the network of youth orchestras in Venezuela known as "El Sistema".

Formed by music schools founded by the teacher José Antonio Abreu, "El Sistema" has offered instruction to thousands of children without resources.

Three decades ago, Dudamel was appointed conductor of the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra, thus beginning a meteoric career that has led him to conduct some of the best classical music ensembles in the world and receive numerous awards.

Dudamel's fame served 40 musicians between the ages of 7 and 16 to represent the "future" chapter, within the history of "past, present and future" with which Pepsi honored the fiftieth anniversary of the Super Bowl.

The Los Angeles Youth Orchestra (YOLA) accompanied the Coldplay group at Levi's Stadium in the city of Santa Clara (California), where the Carolina Panthers faced the Denver Broncos.

Most of the musicians who were on the stage of the Super Bowl are of Hispanic origin and from low-income families .

And his presence may not have been a mere coincidence.

"The strategy is to increasingly attract Hispanic audiences to football. There is a growing Latino population and you need to get their attention to sell," Variety magazine television editor Brian Steinberg told BBC Mundo .

For young musicians it was "the unique opportunity to show the fruit of their effort before millions of people," the president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Deborah Borda, explained to BBC Mundo.

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel extended his contract as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (California) until 2022.

Dudamel's current contract with the musical group, which he took over in 2009, ended in 2019.

As noted by Los Angeles, BBC Mundo journalist Jaime González, this announcement ends speculation that Dudamel could leave to direct the New York Philharmonic, whose director will leave office in 2017.

With this contract extension, Dudamel, 34, will lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic when the band celebrates its 100th anniversary in five years.

The Venezuelan conductor started music at a young age in the network of youth orchestras in Venezuela known as "El Sistema".

Formed by music schools founded more than three decades ago by the teacher José Antonio Abreu, El Sistema has offered instruction to thousands of children without resources.

Three decades ago, Dudamel was appointed director of the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra, thus beginning a meteoric career that has led him to conduct some of the best classical music ensembles in the world and receive numerous awards.

A few days ago it was learned that Dudamel and his wife Eloísa Maturén began the procedures to divorce.

The couple - who married in 2005 and have a 3-year-old common child - cited "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the breakup.

And this phrase - attributed to legendary university coach Henry Sanders and serving as a motto for players and coaches - also works for the complex world around them.

The Super Bowl (also known as the Super Bowl) is considered the most-watched annual sporting event in the U.S., leading to an enormous amount of statistics and data that, in many cases, border on the bizarre and even the impossible.

Just look at a simple fact: the television broadcast, which is expected to reach 168 million viewers, will be a coordinated work of 100 cameras (of which 36 will be hung from the ceiling) that have been installed around the stadium.

To get an idea, in the recent final of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, played at the Maracanã stadium, 55 were used.

But that is the minutiae of a game that can bill some US $ 119 million –only at the box office– and that winning it can mean a unique memory for the fans of the winning team.

So at BBC Mundo we introduce you to the numbers that really matter in Super Bowl 50 (which for the first time is not called Roman, but Arabic).

From end to Super Bowl

This mega event was not like that from the beginning. It was first played in 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, with victory for the "Cheeseheads" team led by a memorable coach: Vicent Lombardi.

It was in homage to him - he died in 1970 due to colon cancer - that the trophy given to the winner of the game was baptized: a silver filling measuring 32 centimeters and that costs US $ 25,000.

But in those years it was not called Super Bowl, but "AFL-NFL World Championship", which were the two associations that coordinated American football. In 1969 it changed to its current name.

But it is from that first 1967 final that comparisons of the impressive evolution of the game can be made.

For example: In 1967 the highest-paid player in the league was Bart Starr, the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, who won several titles with the green and yellow team, and who received about $ 6,000 a year in salary.

Last year, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger earned $ 46 million.

But let's not deviate from the event that calls us: for the first Super Bowl, people paid to enter the Coliseum Memorial up to $ 12, something rational.

For the Santa Clara final, there are people who are paying US $ 14,773 per ticket.

A little high, some may think, but in addition to the game that is supposed to be the most exciting of the year, people who enter the modern Levi's stadium in Santa Clara will be able to enjoy the best location to witness the halftime show included in this occasion for artists such as Coldplay and Beyoncé, with the support of Bruno Mars.

And maybe that's the reason for such prices: the halftime show. In the past, a martial gang, as is traditional in universities, did their thing while players rested halfway through games.