Since the birth of the Super Bowl after the merger of the two professional football leagues the game's title has been designated with the use of a Roman numeral. The game has taken on something of an unofficial national holiday and millions of people watch the game on television in the United States and around the world, including US military installations. Many who watch the game watch not only for the sporting event but for the special Super Bowl commercials that have come into their own right as a cultural experience. The games have been both blow outs and close and some claim the commercials have been what has kept people watching some years.

Over the years the advantage has been with one Conference or another but presently the NFC has a slight advantage over the AFC in Super Bowl wins. The games have been getting better as parity in the overall NFL has grown producing less chance of a blow out once the big game is reached. In the first decades after the merger it was possible to argue that the best games were Conference or even Division games as the Super Bowl was something of a one sided affair. This seems to be less and less the case over the last decade.

The NFL is broken down into fours Divisions in both Conferences with four teams per conference. The winners of each Division make the playoffs and two Wild Card teams from each Conference are able to qualify for the playoffs. The Wild Card teams travel to the lowest win/loss Division winners' stadiums to play in the Wild Card Round. The winners of the Wild Card Round travel to the top two Division winners' stadiums and play for the Division Round. The penultimate round is the Conference Round.