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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Feb 3, 2012
February 3, 2012
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Super Bowl 46, annoying hype and all:
Seven days of hype before three hours of football --the one day where everyone puts aside their differences and stops doing what they normally do. Including, sometimes, the team you're rooting for.
Super Bowl 46 (Yeah, we know --XLVI in Roman numerals) cranks up Sunday with kickoff time at 6:30 pm (Eastern) between the AFC's New England Patriots and the NFC's New York Giants. The Pats are a two-and-a-half to three-point favorite, depending on which betting site you're looking at (More on betting below).
KELLY CLARKSON sings the National Anthem; MADONNA will perform at halftime; Pre-game entertainment includes "America the Beautiful" will be sung by husband and wife country stars BLAKE SHELTON and MIRANDA LAMBERT. Commercials are costing advertisers an average of $3.5 million per 30 second shot.
The game's on NBC, so that's AL MICHAELS doing play-by-play and CRIS COLLINGSWORTH will be providing color commentary.Super Bowl Betting:
The Super Bowl may be the world's biggest betting parlor. For the traditional bettor who watches point spreads, over-unders and scoreboards, you're mindful of injuries and weather.
Of course, there's way more to Super Bowl betting and once bookies realized fans wanted to bet on more than just the point spread or the over-under, all bets were off. You can bet everything from yards gained on first play from scrimmage to points scored in final two minutes of game. There are odds down for the number of TD passes thrown, number of sacks, number of turnovers... you can bet on whether Giants coach TOM COUGHLIN will retire after the game. And of course, people wager on the coin-toss (it's a perfect 50-50 roulette bet --there's only black or red).
These days, about 60 percent of all Super Bowl bets are of the offbeat kind, what the bookies call the prop bet, because you're betting on props. There are over 300 prop bets for you degenerate gamblers, from simple ones, like the duration of game or the announced attendance, to more bizarre ones, like the number of letters in last name of Super Bowl MVP!
And don't be confused by the point-five in those over-under figures. That's to hold you to account for the number you pick (since no one's going to bet on a point-five figure for the attendance --Maiman).Odds on the NFL MVP:
Tom Brady, 7:5
Eli Manning, 9:4Who will the Super Bowl MVP thank first?
--Teammates, 2:1
--God, 7:2
--Owner, 7:2
--Family, 7:1
--Coach, 12:1
--No one, 11:4Length of National Anthem: Over-Under is 1:34. They always go closer to two minutes in the Super Bowl because the anthem is really about the singer and not the song.
Odds Kelly Clarkson will screw up or forget at least one word: 5:2
Odds Kelly Clarkson's bare belly will be showing when she sings: 1:3 (that means yes)
Odds Madonna will wear fishnet stockings at any point during her halftime performance: even
Odds Madonna will wear an NFL Jersey or shirt at any point during her performance:
Yes: 5:2
No: 1:4Odds Madonna will wear a hat at any point during her performance: Even
Gatorade Shower Color
--Clear/Water, 2:1
--Yellow, 2:1
--Orange, 9:4
--Red, 11:2
--Green, 6:1
--Blue, 10:1Top 5 pizza sales days are:
5. New Year's Day
4. The night before Thanksgiving
3. Halloween
2. New Year's Eve
1. Super Bowl SundayMore food facts:
--Fans spend more than $50 million on food during the four days of Super Bowl weekend.
--Sales of antacid increase 20 percent the day after Super Bowl Sunday. The really scary part: we're probably eating more food on Sunday than people in the Sudan do all year.
--Domino's Pizza sells more pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year: more than 1.2 million pies. Some other chains sell over 40 percent more pizzas than they do on a normal Sunday. -
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