It's Super Sunday at last. Keep calm and carry on. We'll get through this together.
The first thing you need to know is that Super Bowl LII -- the actual football game itself -- will kick off around 5:30 p.m. on NBC and streaming on NBCSports.com. Everything up until then is padding. Of course, die-hard football fans will be starting hours earlier to get warmed up.
KARK 4 Today Big Game Edition kicks things off at 10 a.m. for the earliest of birds. That's followed by Super Bowl Pregame: Road to the Super Bowl at 11. That will detail how the Eagles and the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl LII Pregame Show follows from noon until 5 p.m with hosts Dan Patrick and Liam McHugh. Note that 65-year-old Bob Costas is out. He's on the slow off-ramp to NBC emeritus status.
In an email to SportsBusinessDaily.com, Costas explained, "The decision was mutually agreeable, and not only do I not have a problem with it, I am actually happy about it."
Costas, who has been with the network since 1979, has long been a critic of how football is handling the sport's connection with brain trauma.
At 5 p.m., the action switches to the indoor U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, where the NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles (13-3) take on the AFC champ New England Patriots (13-3) for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Calling the game in the booth will be Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, with Michele Tafoya and Heather Cox on the sidelines.
Pink will perform the national anthem and Leslie Odom Jr. will sing "America the Beautiful" to start the game. Ten-time Grammy winner Justin Timberlake will handle the 13-minute Pepsi halftime entertainment.
This is a record third time around for Timberlake. He performed in the 2001 Super Bowl as a member of NSYNC, and in 2004, which included the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" with Janet Jackson. Timberlake, 36, is older and wiser now. There will be no repeat of those shenanigans.
In a pre-game rehearsal video, Timberlake said, "I am getting an opportunity to have the stage to myself. I really am looking at it as my first time. I don't worry about things going wrong, because perfection is the death of greatness."
The game will be a rematch of the 2004 Super Bowl in which New England held off Philadelphia 24-21. Philadelphia has never won a Super Bowl and has not been back to the big game since.
Meanwhile, the Patriots are going for their sixth title, having won the Super Bowl in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2015 and last year.
For the record, the Pittsburgh Steelers have won the most Super Bowls with six. In addition to the Patriots, the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers also have five wins each.
Of equal interest, 40-year-old New England quarterback Tom Brady hopes to make NFL history with his sixth Super Bowl ring as a player. Twenty people (owners, coaches, scouts, etc.) have five Super Bowl rings, but only Brady and Charles Haley (49ers, Cowboys) have earned them all as players.
Trivia: The legendary Bill Belichick, 65, already has seven rings -- two as defensive coordinator of the Giants and five as head coach of New England.
Is Brady the best ever? Maybe. Last year, he overcame a 28-3 third quarter deficit to beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in the first overtime in Super Bowl history. And Brady engineered the 24-20 comeback against the Jacksonville Jaguars to make it to this year's game.
Meanwhile, Nick Foles, 29, took over for injured Eagles QB Carson Wentz during the playoffs. Foles and company handily beat the favored Minnesota Vikings, 38-7, in the NFC Championship Game to earn a spot in the Super Bowl.
Finally, as with each Super Bowl, almost as much attention will be paid to the commercials. Why? Because the Super Bowl is traditionally the most-watched TV event each year. More than 114 million viewers tuned in to the game in 2015, and 111.3 million watched last year on Fox.
That's why the ads cost a fortune. For comparison, a 30-second commercial in the first Super Bowl in 1967 cost between $37,500 and $42,500 with 51.2 million viewers on NBC and CBS. This year, Sports Illustrated reports those same 30 seconds will go for $5 million.
That's a staggering $166,666 per second. I'll let that sink in.
Getting early ad hype is a joint commercial for Doritos and Mountain Dew featuring Peter Dinklage and Morgan Freeman. Others getting buzz are Stella Artois with Matt Damon, Skittles with David Schwimmer, and Keanu Reeves for Squarespace.
In addition, there will be a new Pepsi commercial with 51-year-old Cindy Crawford. It has been 26 years since she dazzled us in her red Lamborghini, white tank top and cutoff jean shorts to the tune of Doris Troy's "Just One Look"
"It's bee-YOU-tee-full."
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 02/04/2018