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New England Patriots fans cheer after the Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII at McGreevy's Bar in Boston, Massachusetts on February 3, 2019.
CNN  — 

America is a divided nation. I’m not just talking about when it comes to who we choose to represent us in government. I’m talking about the choices we make down to as mundane as where we shop for food. But in this world where residents of the United States can never seem to agree, there is one massive event where Americans of all stripes find common ground.

The Super Bowl and the NFL in general seem to bring together Americans in a way few other things can.

In an era of streaming and cable television, most programs capture only a small portion of America’s over 330 million-person population. Last year, the highest non-football program was the State of the Union, which under 40 million Americans watched – the viewership this year was even lower.

When it came to the highest-rated non-sports show on one network, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on NBC took the prize; a mere 22 million Americans tuned into that.

The Super Bowl, meanwhile, was watched by nearly 100 million people on NBC last year. When you combine streaming and Spanish language broadcast, viewership topped 110 million.

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Confetti drops on SoFi stadium as the Los Angeles Rams win Super Bowl LVI against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Last year was no anomaly either: the Super Bowl has crossed the 100 million viewership threshold over 10 times. The only non-Super Bowl show ever to hit those numbers was the series finale of M*A*S*H, which aired 40 years ago.

No other non-Super Bowl show has ever come close to that, and I’m not sure it ever will.

The way the Super Bowl is able to unite Americans is a few fold. Part of it has to do with the popularity of football in America (more on that in a second), but there’s a lot more to it.

The Super Bowl is a bunch of shows wrapped into one. It’s the only spectacle I know of where people watch just for the commercials. SSRS polling shows that 24% of people who watch the Super Bowl say their favorite thing about the game is the commercials. No wonder that the price of a 30-second ad is going to cost advertisers about $7 million this year.

The Super Bowl is also a much-raved about music show at halftime. Big stars have been performing at the Super Bowl for over 30 years now. This year, it is Rihanna – who has sold hundreds of millions of records and won nine Grammys – making her live-music return. Over 10% of people who watch the big game say the halftime show is their favorite thing.

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Beyoncé performs during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2013.
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The first Super Bowl was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1967. The halftime entertainment included trumpeter Al Hirt, a local high school drill team and the marching bands of Grambling State University and the University of Arizona. But the most memorable performers might have been the Bell Rocket Air Men flying around in jet packs.
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The New Christy Minstrels, a folk and pop group, were one of the performers during the Super Bowl halftime show in 1970. The game was held at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, so the show's theme was tribute to Mardi Gras.
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Hirt plays the trumpet while Ella Fitzgerald sings at the Super Bowl in 1972. The show that year paid tribute to jazz legend Louis Armstrong, who died the year before.
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The halftime show in 1977 was produced by Disney, and the theme was "It's a Small World."
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A Mardi Gras-themed float is part of the show in 1981, which took place inside the Louisiana Superdome.
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The crowd contributes a colorful background to the Super Bowl halftime show in 1983, which was held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
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The NFL switched things up in 1991, featuring popular boy band New Kids on the Block for the Super Bowl's 25th anniversary. But TV audiences didn't actually see the show until after the game because ABC showed a Gulf War news report instead.
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The "King of Pop," Michael Jackson, performed several of his hit songs in 1993. His performance is often credited with launching the tradition of blockbuster halftime shows.
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A helicopter picks up Diana Ross after she headlined the Super Bowl halftime show in 1996.
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The 2001 halftime show brought together several stars from different musical genres. From left are Justin Timberlake, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, Britney Spears and Nelly. Mary J. Blige also performed that year.
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A mural at the 2002 show honors those who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
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The 2004 show will forever be known for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction." Timberlake tore off a part of her clothing at the end of a song, revealing her right breast, and many people watching at home were outraged. The Federal Communications Commission ordered an investigation, and the NFL spent the next few years going with safer acts.
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Beatles great Paul McCartney performs at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2005.
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Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger dances during the 2006 halftime show.
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Prince played at the Super Bowl in 2007, and a soggy day in south Florida provided the perfect backdrop for his song "Purple Rain."
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Bruce Springsteen rocks out with the E Street Band at the halftime show in 2009.
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Madonna, clad as a Roman goddess, is carried to the stage in 2012.
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Katy Perry was a hit in 2015, but maybe not as much as "Left Shark," which quickly became a meme.
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Fans take part in the 2016 show at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. The colorful display reads "Believe in Love" during a performance that combined Bruno Mars, Beyonce and Coldplay.
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Lady Gaga is suspended in the air while performing in Houston in 2017.
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Shakira and Jennifer Lopez teamed up in 2020 when the game was played in south Florida.
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Rihanna performs during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2023. She opened the show by hanging high above the field on a platform. She rubbed her abdomen during her closing song, sparking speculation that she might be expecting. After the performance, a Rihanna representative confirmed that she was pregnant.

But I’d argue that the ability for the Super Bowl and the NFL to be so popular ultimately comes down to the fact that it bridges the partisan divide in our country.

We can see this well in Google searches.

For most topics, there is some sort of correlation between how states voted in the last presidential election and how many people in a given state are searching for said topic. There is a very strong correlation, for example, between searches for the Academy Awards and vote patterns in the 2020 presidential election with states Biden won far more likely to have interest in the Oscars.

The Oscars, not surprisingly, have seen their ratings fall from nearly 60 million in the late 1990s to less than 20 million today.

The Super Bowl has maintained its high ratings in part because there is basically no correlation between past voting patterns and interest in the Super Bowl according to Google searches.

This shouldn’t be surprising given what I had previously found. Blue states and red states have never seen a big divide in terms of how they search for the NFL overall. The NFL is unique in this regard, as most major sports show some geographic correlation with past election results.

And we’re not just seeing the lack of a red and blue divide on Google. We see it in the polling as well.

A Washington Post poll taken in 2022 found that 67% of Americans were fans of football. No other sport tested topped 50%. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 66% were fans. For Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 70% were fans. It was the only sport where more than 50% of both Democrats and Republicans were fans of the sport.

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Fans watch Super Bowl XLVIII between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks on television at a sports bar in New Jersey, on February 2, 2014.

There hasn’t been a lot of recent polling that meets CNN’s standards for publication on Super Bowl fandom specifically, but the polling we do have suggests that the adulation Americans have for football specifically carries over to the big game.

A Monmouth University poll from 2019 found that there was just a four-point difference between the percentage of Democrats and Republicans who were going to watch the Super Bowl.

About the only thing that does divide Americans when it comes to the Super Bowl is “Who do I root for?” On that issue, I say follow your heart. I’m hoping for a nice, clean game.