The build up to the Super Bowl is the 17 week journey of a team, its players and most importantly its fans.  Thirty cities and their international fan base will fall out of the running before February yet most will still tune in to watch the biggest game of the year.  In fact more people will view the Super Bowl than annually than watch any regular season game.  Part of the build up to this high viewership are the strong cross pronominals the NFL runs to remind you there is little else to do on this particular Sunday and almost obliging an entire nation to celebrate a holiday with your favorite people to enjoy specific corporate snacks washed down with an official beer sponsor.

Yes, beer is an integral ingredient to all sports viewing.  In fact several breweries own stadiums and feature their sole products exclusively at their events.  However, only can become the official NFL sponsor and print that on their labels plus get the honorable mention consistently throughout the game.   It’s a reminder of what to order when watching the game at the bar or writing on a list for when heading to the grocery market to pick up the snacks for Sacred Sunday.  Budweiser has taken the crown this year.  It’s main competitors Miller and Coors own stadiums but so does Anheuser Busch the parent company of Budweiser so this can’t exactly be reduced to a conflict of interest.

Food items from candy bars to pizza restaurant chains specializing in delivery will be reminding America the Super Bowl is approaching and might contain the current Super Bowl logo and run some promotional winnings to increase purchases.  This runs as a double feature for the product to advertise by extension of the Super Bowl logo and as that widespread reminder that the Super Bowl is approaching.

The NFL postseason highlights the featured halftime entertainment show so anticipation can begin for those non sports fans in the viewership of the game.  Some will be watching exclusively for the big commercial premieres but others will at least enjoy the musical break and since the introduction of the “wardrobe malfunction” increasing numbers of eyes take a peek.  But hey, the Puppy Bowl is going on all day if you want to flip the channel for a glimpse.  Perhaps Lady Gaga isn’t pet approved in your house this year.

Another tactic to pull in non sports viewers to the Super Bowl is to attach entertainment shows to the nightly television programming. The Super Bowl is not airing on the Fox Television Network but they do have playoff games leading up to it and are using that time to advertise their rebooted 24: Legacy series. Commercials for this program might not air during the Super Bowl but the ads for the program series premiere are being attached to it with the tag “after the Super Bowl” giving the largest annual television audience an opportunity to tune into a largely desired show with an easy to remember time slot. This is even convenient for those avoiding the Super Bowl to watch this new show.

For those die hard football fans who will miss their sport as it goes into hiatus for several months the pregame programming spotlighting the players and teams who made it to play on this day will capture the hearts and minds of even those beyond the sporting demographic and make fans for the day with these Cinderella type stories of players struggling through adversary.

In addition to these tactics the NFL will air their regular programming commercials throughout the two weeks heading up to the Super Bowl. The network airing it is proud to present the event and boasts this ad nauseum as the match of the year and rightly so it is as these two teams slipped into the playoffs by their respective seasons and played in January undefeated. Them’s the rules of Super Bowl LI.