I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but at some point in the last three or four decades, the Super Bowl has become an unofficial national holiday. Hard core NFL fans have always watched, but the game has captured every demographic imaginable due to casual football fans and even non football fans tuning in. The game itself is almost secondary to the lengthy pregame show, the human interest stories, the musical acts, the National Anthem, the over the top halftime show, and the multimillion dollar commercials.
The first one I truly remember watching was Super Bowl XIV on January 20, 1980 (yes I’m old) when the Steelers beat the Rams.