This is part two of our guide to get you perfectly prepared for the Super Bowl. We’ll start again with a broad look at American Football and the NFL, then get into the specifics—without getting too complicated. By the end, you’ll understand exactly what’s happening on the field during the big game on Sunday night.
Missed Part 1? Read everything about the basic rules and scoring in American Football here.
Let’s talk about the teams and the league structure. In the United States, sports culture is quite different from Europe.
Most European clubs—whether they are corporations or non-profits—evolved from local community clubs. This is true for almost all major sports.
In the USA, however, teams in the major leagues (Basketball, Football, Ice Hockey, etc.) have an owner. The NFL is no different.
This is why, after the Super Bowl, the trophy is usually first handed to an older gentleman (as most owners happen to be older men) who is neither the coach nor a player. For some viewers, this takes some getting used to, but in the US, it’s completely normal.
The owner is the person who has the final say on personnel decisions and ultimately pays for everything: coaches’ salaries, staff, and team maintenance, such as training facilities and the team plane.
Player salaries, however, are regulated differently. This is a great fact to impress your friends with at a watch party:
NFL player salaries are public and transparent. They are frequently mentioned and players are constantly compared. As is often the case in professional sports, the sums can be astronomical. However, there is a massive difference compared to European soccer structures. In soccer, teams with wealthy sponsors (like Bayern Munich) or owners have an advantage because they can simply outspend smaller clubs (like St. Pauli). This allows successful clubs to get wealthier very quickly.
In the States, there are strict regulations on how much money can be paid out in player salaries. The simple math: The total revenue generated by the league is distributed equally among the teams. From that, they are allowed to invest roughly 50% into player salaries.
This means that in a new season, every team—regardless of whether they were good or bad the previous year—has approximately $300 million available for salaries. The money has already been earned.
It’s a very fair system, even if we don’t need to argue that these are mind-boggling sums of money.
Speaking of fairness: Is football actually fair, and are there rules? It often looks like they’re just hitting each other.
Yes, there are rules—and quite a lot of them. Too many to list, in fact. They range from “False Starts” to “Face Mask” penalties and even “Taunting” the opponent.
But you don’t necessarily need to know every single foul; you just need to know what happens when one occurs.
The referees throw what is called a Yellow Flag. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a small yellow cloth tucked into the referee’s belt. As soon as an official sees a foul, they toss the flag onto the field.
For some fouls, the play is stopped immediately. However, for most fouls, the play continues, and the penalty is announced afterward. The fouled team then gets to decide whether they want to accept or decline the penalty.
Wait, why would they decline it?
A foul is always punished with “yards.” The fouled team gets to move forward. The type of foul determines the number of yards gained. The more severe the foul, the more yards are awarded. Often, this also results in a fresh set of downs (First Down).
However, if the team managed to gain 20 yards on a successful pass during the play, but the penalty for the opponent’s foul is only 10 yards, the team will decline the penalty. They prefer the actual progress they made over the penalty yards.
Now you know what those yellow flags mean when they appear on screen. Even though it’s a full-contact sport, there are very strict rules and consequences.
At 49 Bills Drive, a Buffalo Bills fan shares his perspective on the NFL and his team. Easy to understand, free of overly technical jargon, but always full of joy and passion. He shares his football knowledge here on what the sports.
