Super Bowl XLIX

Overview

Super Bowl XLIX was the 49th National Football League (NFL) championship game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on February 1st, 2015. The game ended in the Patriots' victory against the Seahawks by 28-24, which marked their fourth Super Bowl championship title in NFL history. It also set a new record as the most watched program in American television history with an average of 114.4 million viewers, surpassing the previous year's record of 112.2 million viewers set by Super Bowl XLVIII.

Background

Halftime Show Announcement

On November 23rd, 2014, the NFL confirmed that pop artist Katy Perry would be performing during the halftime show. That day, the Pepsi YouTube channel uploaded a promotional video for the upcoming performance (shown below).

Season Championship Winners

On January 18th, 2015, the New England Patriots won a landslide victory (45-7) against the Indianapolis Colts at during their American Football Conference (AFC) Championship game. The same day, the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Green Bay Packers (28-22) in their National Football Conference (NFC) Championship game. The winner of each were selected to compete in the Super Bowl to become the 2014 NFL champion.

Notable Developments

#DeflateGate

Following the AFC game, accusations that the Patriots used deflated footballs to gain a competitive advantage over the Colts prompted an investigation by the NFL. In response, many Twitter users posted jokes and photoshopped images mocking the investigation with the hashtag #DeflateGate.

Skittles Commercial

On January 26th, the Skittlesbrand YouTube channel uploaded a commercial featuring Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch answering questions from reporters in front of a Skittles backdrop (shown below). Within 48 hours, the video gathered more than three million views and 1,400 comments.

Media Day

On January 27th, a Super Bowl media day was held for players to answer questions about the upcoming game at various press conferences. That day, Twitter users joked about Tom Brady's messy hairstyle worn during a press conference (shown below).

During another press conference, Marshawn Lynch replied to each question with the answer "I'm here so I won't get fined" (shown below). A video of the conference was subsequently submitted to the /r/videos^[2] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 4,800 votes (93% upvoted) within 24 hours. That day, The Daily What^[1] published a round-up of notable media day incidents.

Halftime Shark

During the halftime show in which Perry performed the song "Teenage Dream," one of the backup dancers dressed as a shark was seen awkwardly fumbling the choreographed routine, which lead to the phrase "left shark" becoming a trending Topic on Twitter.

Notable Advertisements

On January 22nd, 2015, the Bud Light YouTube channel uploaded a commercial featuring a live-action game of Pac-Man inside a large dance club (shown below, left). On January 26th, Tmobile released a mock public service announcement commercial starring Kim Kardashian, in which she laments the loss of unused Internet data at the end of billing cycles on competing wireless networks (shown below, right).

The same day, the BMW USA YouTuber channel uploaded their "Newfangled Idea" Super Bowl commercial, featuring footage from the 1990s of Today Show hosts Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric incredulously discussing the Internet followed by a clip of the duo driving an all-electric BMW i3 vehicle (shown below, left). On January 28th, the Budweiser YouTube channel uploaded a commercial titled "Lost Dog," in which a puppy ventures back to its farm home after accidentally escaping in a trailer (shown below, right).

On January 29th, the SnickersBrand YouTube channel released a Brady Bunch parody commercial starring actors Danny Trejo and Steve Buschemi (shown below, left). On February 1st, Esurance released their commercial titled "Say My Name," featuring the character Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston) from Breaking Bad as a drug store pharmacist (shown below, right).

Also on February 1st, the Nationwide Insurance YouTube channel uploaded the commercial "Make Safe Happen," featuring a child who laments all the things he will never do because he died from an "accident" (shown below). That day, Redditor MerMista submitted the video in a post titled "Darkest Super Bowl ad ever?" to the /r/videos^[3] subreddit.

Doritos' "Crash the Super Bowl" Winner

Director Scott Zabielski won Doritos' "Crash the Super Bowl" contest with the commercial "Middle Seat," featuring a man who prevents people from sitting next to him on an airplane until seeing an attractive woman, only to be disappointed to discover she is holding a small child (shown below).

Search Interest

External References