SUPER BOWL XXXVI EDITION

ITEM ONE:

A SUPER SHOW!

It literally came down to the last minute -- make that the last seven seconds!  The first Super Bowl decided on the last play of the game – ADAM VINATIERI’s 48-yard field goal with seven seconds left last Sunday to give the Patriots a 20-17 Super Bowl XXXVI win over the Rams – thrilled fans at the Louisiana Superdome, TV viewers around the world, and the nation’s media.  A media sampling: “Best Super Bowl of all-time” – Sports Illustrated; “A super Super Bowl” – Washington Post;  “Every way, it was Patriots Day.  In sport and life, America never looked better” – Chicago Sun-Times;  “TV doesn’t get any better.  Last night’s Super Bowl spectacle was the most dramatic, the most entertaining, the most sentimental, the most exciting.  Throw in your own superlatives” – Boston Herald; “Super Bowl XXXVI surpasses the others because of what happened on the field, and off it” – New York Times; “One of the most compelling Super Bowl finishes” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch; “Sunday was the best Super Bowl of them all” – New York Daily News; “All told, this was one Super Sunday” -- San Francisco Chronicle.          

ITEM TWO:

SB XXXVI FIFTH MOST-WATCHED TV SHOW EVER

Fifth most-watched – and the first four are Super Bowls!  That’s the ranking Super Bowl XXXVI achieved this past Sunday, attracting 131.7 million Americans (almost one in every two citizens) for all or parts of the game to make it the fifth most-watched program in television history.  The first four are Super Bowls (XXX, XXVIII, XXXII and XXVII).  In fact, the 10 most-watched shows in TV history are Super Bowls.  Super Bowl XXXVI earned a 40.4 national rating with a 61 share.  That rating was the highest of the TV season and the 12th consecutive year that Super Bowl earned a 40.0-plus rating.  “Only the Super Bowl gets that number,” says JON MANDEL of Mediacom.  “Everyone bonded together as a nation in front of their TV sets.”  At this point in the 2001-02 television season, NFL programming accounts for seven of the top-10 telecasts.   

ITEM THREE:

SUPERBOWL.COM POSTS RECORD NUMBERS

It was a site to be seen!  SuperBowl.com, the NFL’s official Super Bowl web site, produced record totals last Sunday.  The site achieved 1.18 million unique users, a 58 percent increase from last year’s Super Bowl (745,000).  For the entire week, SuperBowl.com attracted more than 3.1 million visits, almost three times the total of Super Bowl XXXV (1.2 million).  Since January 1, SuperBowl.com has achieved more than 83 million page views and 12 million visits. 

ITEM FOUR:

FAN VOTE ON NFL.COM EARNS BRADY SUPER BOWL MVP TROPHY 

New England Patriots quarterback TOM BRADY was named the Super Bowl XXXVI MVP in voting decided by the fans.  Nineteen ballots in all are tabulated in the MVP voting – 15 from media covering the game, and four votes given to the player who receives the most fan votes registered on NFL.com.  The four Brady fan votes swung the election for the youngest quarterback (24) to win a Super Bowl title.  FOX-TV’s JOHN MADDEN and Sports Illustrated’s PETER KING were among those media who also voted for Brady.