5 WAYS MINING MAKES THE SUPER BOWL SUPER
Super Bowl LV kicks off this Sunday in Tampa. Whether you’re rooting for the Bengals, the Rams, or are just happy for the opportunity to stuff your face, here are 5 ways mining makes the Super Bowl truly super.
Lombardi Trophy
NFL teams compete for months for the right to hold up one of the most prestigious awards in American professional sports, the Lombardi Trophy. The trophy costs $50,000 to make, requires seven pounds of silver, and takes four months to construct.
Super Bowl 50 was Golden
The NFL went all out to celebrate Super Bowl 50, the golden anniversary. The coin toss featured a specially designed coin plated in 24 karat gold. Large golden “50” statures were placed throughout host city San Francisco. There were even discussions about creating a one-time Lombardi Trophy made of gold.
Fans attending the game could get into the gold fever as well. One of the food options at the game was a $12 hot dog sprinkled with flakes of real gold. Not a bad price considering the average ticket price for the game was nearly $5,000!
Field Turf
Not only are teams playing for mined materials, they play on them too. Stadiums like Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium, host of Super Bowl LIII, use field turf instead of natural grass as a playing surface. Turf fields consist of blades of synthetic grass made of petroleum-based nylon or polyethylene. Field turf is a popular replacement for grass in indoor stadiums and in areas where weather makes it difficult to maintain a grass playing field.
The Ring
Following the Super Bowl, players and staff of the victorious team are rewarded with a championship ring. The custom designed rings are worth tens of thousands of dollars, include hundreds of diamonds, and also are required to be made of 10-karat gold.
Makes the Party
People all over the country will be attending Super Bowl Sunday parties, and mining makes many of the things that help us enjoy the big game. The 50 million cases of beer America consumes during the Super Bowl are filtered with diatomaceous earth. Televisions require minerals like gold, silver, and copper. Even the cars and roads that help us get to our destination require a countless number of mined materials.