Transcript - “Listening Time” Episode 141

Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, and
you're listening to Episode 141 of the Listening Time Podcast. I hope everyone is doing
excellent, and I hope that you're ready to practice your English listening with another
episode.
Today, I'm going to talk about a really relevant topic, which is the Super Bowl.
I'm sure most of you have heard of this before; this is the biggest sporting event in the
US. This is the nal game of the NFL, the National Football League. So this event, I
think, will take place maybe two days or so before this episode is released. And so, this
will be a topic that a lot of people are talking about.
So, someone requested this topic, and I thought it would be a good idea to talk
a little bit about this because this is an element of American culture. And I'm sure it will
be educational for you to learn about the Super Bowl, even if you're not a big sports
fan. So, this should be an interesting episode.
And remember that if you want my advanced episodes, where I speak fast, then
make sure to become a Listening Time Family Member, and you'll get two new
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Description. That's www.patreon.com/listeningtime
And if you feel ready to practice with my conversations that I have with other
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US Conversations Podcast. And you'll get a new long conversation every month with
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And, as always, please give this podcast a ve-star rating on Spotify or Apple
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learning English. Alright, let's get started.
Okay, let's talk about the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl this year, in 2024, will
take place on February 11. And I think this episode will be released on the 13th If I'm
not mistaken. So, the Super Bowl probably just happened if you're listening to this
episode the week that it comes out. So, people might be talking about it. You might
have heard about it in the news or on social media.
And the rst thing that is important to know about the Super Bowl is that it's the
biggest national sporting event in the US… by far, I think. When we say “by far,” we're
saying by a wide margin; it means that this is in rst place, and the second-place one is
far behind. So, the Super Bowl is by far the biggest national sporting event in the US.
And football, American football, of course, is the most popular sport in the US. This is
the sport that many people watch. More people watch this sport than any other sport.
So, it's become maybe the new national sport… if we have one. I don't think we
have one in the US, but if there were a national sport, it would probably be football
nowadays. Whereas 100 years ago, it would have been baseball. So… I think. I'm not a
big sports history bu , so I can't tell you for sure, but I would say so.
By the way, we can use the word “bu ” to talk about someone who is a fanatic
of a certain topic, a certain, let's say, eld or discipline or something that they know a
lot about. Oftentimes, we use this with history. If someone is a history bu , that means
they know a lot about history; they consume a lot of educational material about history;
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 they get excited about the topic. That's a history bu . So, I'm not a sports history bu ,
so some of my opinions might not be 100% accurate. But I think that baseball was the
national sport in the past, and now, it seems like it's football.
So, this sporting event, the Super Bowl, is so popular that many, many non-
football fans also watch it. Even people that don't follow football at all, people that
haven't watched a single game all season, they might still watch the Super Bowl. So,
you can imagine how popular this event is.
And another thing to remember is that most Americans only watch national
sports. This means that they only watch sports that are played in leagues that are with
only American teams, or sometimes one Canadian team. Toronto sometimes has a
team that is part of our national league for di erent sports… but for the most part, just
American teams.
And so, if you think about our major sports, like football, and basketball, and
baseball, the games that people watch in the US are games that are played between
two American teams, right? The New York Yankees versus the Boston Red Sox, or the
New England Patriots versus the Kansas City Chiefs, right? They’re two American
teams, not teams from di erent countries.
And this is di erent from the rest of the world, in most cases, because in most
countries around the world, soccer is the biggest sport. And one of the most exciting
things about soccer throughout the year is that there are international competitions
played, right, like the World Cup, for example, and many other international
competitions.
So, Americans don't usually watch these, and our sports don't usually involve
international teams, except for Toronto, sometimes. Besides that, it's just an American
League with American teams, with Americans watching. Obviously, people from other
countries sometimes watch our sports as well. But in terms of what Americans watch,
the Americans watch American sports, for the most part. If you watch international
sports as an American, you're in the minority.
So, you can imagine that this sporting event, which is for an American sport, the
most popular one that even non-football fans are interested in watching… in terms of
this nal game, the Super Bowl… you can imagine how many people watch this event.
It's very, very popular in the US.
And you might ask, what is the Super Bowl, really? What is this? Well, as I
mentioned, it's the nal game of the NFL, and how it works is that there are 32 di erent
NFL teams… if I'm not mistaken. I’m just going o of my prior knowledge. I didn't look
this up. So, hopefully, I'm not mistaken here. But from what I remember, back in the
days when I used to watch football, there are 32 teams in total, and these teams are
divided into two conferences, we call them: he AFC, the American Football
Conference, and the NFC, the National Football Conference.
And each of these conferences has four divisions based on the geography of the
US. So, the north, the south, the east, and the west. So, you have an AFC West
Division and an NFC West Division, and an AFC North Division, and an NFC North
Division, etc. And so, all of these di erent teams in these di erent divisions in these
two conferences, they play against each other throughout the regular season. And
then, we have the playo s after the regular season.
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 The playo s refer to the phase after the regular season that only certain teams
qualify for, only the top teams. And then, during the playo s, there are di erent rounds
in which teams are eliminated until nally, there are only two teams remaining: one
team from the AFC and one team from the NFC. And these two teams play against
each other in the Super Bowl.
So, that's how the teams are determined, who will play in the Super Bowl. And
then, whoever wins the Super Bowl is the champion of the whole NFL. Right? They are
the winners for that season. So, this is the case in most sports, I think. At the end of
every season, there's one team that is considered the champion. And that's the case
for the Super Bowl; whoever wins is the champion for that year.
And there are some important di erences to consider when talking about
American sports, like football, and soccer in other countries that will also help you
understand the excitement of the Super Bowl. So, one really big di erence that you
can see in American sports when you compare them to soccer in most countries… this
is not always the case, but I think most of the time it is… that is that in American
sports, there's usually a di erent team at the top, a di erent champion every year. It
doesn't always happen like that, of course, but most years, the champion is a di erent
champion from the previous year’s champion.
And why is that? Well, in American sports, of course, we have the money factor;
di erent owners of di erent teams have di erent amounts of money to spend. And, of
course, that's a factor, but it's not as big of a factor as it is in soccer in other countries.
As you might know, in most countries, there are certain soccer clubs that have tons of
money, and then other clubs have very little money, and the clubs with a lot of money
always win. They're always the champions. There aren't really a lot of other teams with
little money that compete for the championship every year. Usually, it's just one of the
rich clubs that wins. Again, that's not always the case, but that's the case most of the
time.
In the US, it doesn't quite work like this. In most of our sports, there's always
what we call a “draft.” So, for example, the NFL draft is this event in which the di erent
teams, they draft, or they choose, di erent college football players. So, the big college
football stars eventually go to the NFL. And the way that they do that is through this
draft. And so, the di erent teams in the NFL, they are ranked according to how well or
how poorly they did the previous year.
So, for example, let's say that one team was the worst team in 2023. They were
in last place. They had the lowest amount of wins. Well, that team is going to get the
rst pick in the NFL draft the next season. So, they were the worst team that year, but
then next year, they get to choose their rst college football player before any other
team. So, basically, they get the best guy, the best college football player.
So, what happens is that these bad teams, they suddenly get a really good
college star that's going to make their team better. And this process, and other factors
as well, help to balance out the di erent teams so that it's not always the same teams
that are good and the same teams that are bad. There are always cycles where a team
is good for a season or a couple seasons, and then they're bad, and then they're good
again, and then they're bad. And that happens a lot more in football than it does in
soccer in other countries.
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 So, because of all of that, the Super Bowl is often extra exciting in this context
because many times, it involves a team that was bad during the previous years. So,
maybe there was a team that didn't even make the playo s one year, but then the next
year, they are in the Super Bowl. And so, it's really exciting for that city's fans because
they went from being bad to suddenly, they're competing for the ultimate prize. And so,
you can imagine the excitement for many cities when their team makes it to the Super
Bowl, even though they've never won it before or they were really bad the last few
years. So, it makes it more exciting.
And knowing all of that, you also know that if a team does win multiple Super
Bowls year after year, you know that that team is really special because that doesn't
normally happen. So, you might know about the New England Patriots back when Tom
Brady was on the team and how they won Super Bowl after Super Bowl after Super
Bowl, many di erent Super Bowls. And we would call that a “dynasty.”
In American sports when one team wins multiple championships in a short
period of time, we say that that team has a dynasty. And dynasties are very special in
the US because they don't happen often. It's not like in di erent soccer leagues around
the world where the same team can win four or ve times in a row, and it's just normal,
it's expected. Not in the US, that's very rare. And so, it's special when that happens.
So, about the Super Bowl itself, you might already know this: it's very ashy.
That just means that there's an excess of spectacular elements, right? There are a lot
of amazing things. It's a whole show. It starts with the national anthem, where someone
sings our national song, right, the Star-Spangled Banner. And usually, it's some
celebrity or famous singer or someone; I don't know. But it's very dramatic, usually.
And by the way, this national anthem is sung at all of our sporting events, our
national ones, even local sporting events. It's not just during international games
against other countries. No, even at a local high school basketball game, they'll
probably sing the national anthem before the game. This is an important element of the
sporting event.
And then, of course, there's the big halftime show during the Super Bowl. In the
middle of the game, after the second quarter, the teams take a break. and there's this
halftime show. It's basically a concert. There's some famous musician or someone that
puts on this amazing show for all of these fans. And it's very ashy. It's very
spectacular.
And the commercials are also important during the Super Bowl. This is when
you'll see the funniest and most creative commercials, advertisements, for di erent
companies. And this makes it more fun for non-football fans who are watching the
Super Bowl. Some people get excited for the commercials more than the football
game.
And people will often talk about these commercials afterwards. “Hey, did you
see the commercial for blah, blah, blah company?” Because the commercials are very
di erent during the Super Bowl. The companies that advertise during the Super Bowl
purposely put their best e ort and spend the most amount of money on these
particular commercials. And people like them. So, that makes it fun for some people.
And people have Super Bowl parties. This is really common. People invite their
friends and their family members over. They watch the game… sometimes. I say this
because many people go to Super Bowl parties, and they don't actually watch the
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game. They just talk and socialize and eat… especially chips and guac (guac is a way
to say guacamole here). So, people might just treat it as a social event. They might not
even care about who wins. They just go for the socializing and the food, and maybe the
commercials.
So as you can see, this is very di erent from, let's say, an important soccer
match because pretty much everyone who goes to watch an important soccer match is
watching the match. They're not there to socialize, right? But with the Super Bowl, it's
a social event. The sport is sometimes important, sometimes not so important. Usually,
it's a mix; usually, some people are really into the game when they go to these parties,
and some people aren't. And they're the ones standing and talking in the kitchen or
whatever. So, you have a mixture there. So, Super Bowl parties are very common, and
a lot of people look forward to them.
Alright, I think that's pretty much all I wanted to say about the Super Bowl.
Hopefully, you learned a little bit about this tradition here in the US, and maybe some of
you watched the Super Bowl. I don't know. I'm not going to watch it because I'm not
interested in football, but a lot of other Americans are interested in this. So hopefully,
this episode was good practice for your listening.
And remember that if you feel ready to practice with real English spoken at
normal speed, make sure to sign up to become a Listening Time Family member to
receive my advanced podcast episodes. The link is down below. And you also have the
link down below for my US Conversations Podcast, in which I talk to di erent people
from around the country about interesting topics. And it's great practice for you to start
listening to and understanding two people talking to each other. So, the link is also in
the Description down below.
And please give this podcast a ve-star rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if
you can, and share it with anyone else you know who might nd it useful. Alright, thank
you for listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening
Time.
*Get my training and advanced podcast: www.patreon.com/listeningtime
*US Conversations Podcast: www.patreon.com/USConversations
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