Super Bowl 2014 Tips For Fans: Ways To Enhance The Football Party Experience

Whether you are a fan of the Denver Broncos or Seattle Seahawks or not, the Super Bowl often means one thing: blowout party.

Last year, like many, there was a push for the day after the big game to be a national holiday with so many drained after a long night of wings and beer.

Super Bowl XLVIII is less than a week away, and the game could break viewership records. Last year, 108 million tuned in to watch the Baltimore Ravens defeate the San Francisco 49ers, in a game that had a blackout.

Below are several ways to make your party the best on the block.

Football Squares

Football squares remain one of the best ways to root for a team when you don't have your heart set on one team winning. It’s also a relatively painless way to win back any money you spend on your party.

A full breakdown of how to play is here, but essentially, a player is given two numbers and hopes for each quarter to end with their numbers intact. SavingAdvice.com, a website devoted to saving money, put together a solid official board with Denver and Seattle included.

Trivia

Questions can be devised for both the most die-hard fan or for the more mainstream, including commercials and halftime show theatrics and events.

Here’s a solid quiz for quarterback experts from the Albuquerque Journal, and another that covers the history of the NFL’s seminal event.

FunTrivia also devised a fully automated quiz for halftime experts.

For kids, Kidzworld has some fun facts to make the Super Bowl a learning experience as well.

Commercial Democracy

Every year, the likes of Coca-Cola, Budweiser, and Doritos spend millions on commercials for the Super Bowl, hoping to generate buzz that lasts throughout the year. Non-football fans often graviate to the entertaining commercials for the nearly four hour telecast.

Depending on the size of your party, breakout some markers and paper and vote on the best commercials of the night. The outcomes won’t matter too much, but should spur lots of debate throughout the game.

There’s also a full quiz about the history of Super Bowl commercials here.

Prop Bets

For the betting fan, everything from total yards and MVP to the coin toss and national anthem length can be found at Las Vegas bookmaker site Bovada.lv.

Lots Of Super Recipes

One thing that shouldn’t and likely won’t be short of hand is food. The typical fare includes wings, burgers, ribs, dips, sandwiches, chips and plenty more.

But Forbes spoke to several top chefs and asked them for their Super Bowl recipes, including Italian style wings, cocktails, and macaroni and cheese.

SeriousEats.com put together an even more extensive list of cocktails here. For the more health conscious, Feastie.com also has more than 300 salad recipes.