-and-
Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans will be a repeat matchup as the Philadelphia Eagles challenge reigning champions the Kansas City Chiefs.
Source: Census Bureau
Portions By Travis Shoemaker
Image: Courtesy
Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans will be a repeat matchup as the Philadelphia Eagles challenge reigning champions the Kansas City Chiefs. There are no New Mexico natives on either roster, nor are there any who attended a New Mexico university. In fact, there are only three players tangentially connected to our broader community by way of being alumni of schools from Conference USA, the Aggies’ current conference.
- Milton Williams, DT (Louisiana Tech)
- Reed Blankenship, S (Middle Tennessee)
- Tristin McCollum, S (Sam Houston)
Curiously enough, all three play Defense for the Philadelphia Eagles. So, if you haven’t picked a team, you might consider rooting for the Eagles because they are the closest thing we have to “supporting local” in this year’s big game.
The two National Football League (NFL) teams last vied for the title in Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona, where Kansas City defeated Philadelphia 38-35. The Chiefs have dominated the NFL in recent years, playing in all but one Super Bowl since the 2019 season and winning three of those four contests.
The states where the most players were born are California, Florida, and Texas (10 each), Georgia (8) and Ohio (6).
The Eagles are familiar with post-season supremacy too: Sunday’s matchup will be their third Super Bowl in seven years.
With all that Super Bowl experience, many players on both teams have suited up for the Big Game multiple times. For some, this will be their fifth Super Bowl in six seasons.
As the champions of the 2022 and 2023 NFL seasons, this three-peat Super Bowl outing gives the Kansas City Chiefs a chance to make NFL history: no team has ever won three consecutive Super Bowls.
The Philadelphia Eagles, however, are a formidable opponent, having scored 55 points—the most ever in any conference championship game – against the Washington Commanders January 26.
Regardless of how things turn out on the field, you can impress the folks at your watch party with some Super Bowl fun facts from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Meet the Players From Across the Country and Around the World
Do you know the most common first and last names on this year’s Super Bowl roster? The top birth states of the players? How about the most attended college? Ever compared the height and weight of your favorite players? Or their ages and years of experience in the league?
Check out our Big Game Census visualization for answers to these burning questions about the 103 active roster players in Super Bowl LIX:
Note: Select the image to go to the interactive data visualization.
Highlights
- The most common first names are Mike (3), and Carson, C.J., Jalen, Jordan, Joshua, Justin and Nick (2 each).
- The most common last names are Smith (4), and Johnson and Brown (3 each).
- The states where the most players were born are California, Florida, and Texas (10 each), Georgia (8) and Ohio (6).
- There are four (down from seven last year) foreign-born players who hail from Australia, Canada, Greece and Nigeria.
- Colleges: Oklahoma and Georgia (7 each), Alabama (5), Florida and Florida State (4 each), Clemson, Michigan, Memphis, Penn State, Stanford and Texas (3 each).
- Conferences: SEC (32), Big Ten (20) and ACC (19).
- Age: The oldest players, Travis Kelce and James Winchester, are both 35 and play for Kansas City. Thirteen players are age 30 and over. The remaining 90 players are in their 20s (the two youngest are 21). The average age of all the players is 26.2.
- Years of NFL experience: The four most experienced players on the field have a dozen years each under their belts. Seven players have 10 or more years of experience, down from 10 players last year. Fifteen players are rookies. The average amount of experience is 4.31 years.
- Height: The tallest players (the Chiefs’ Ethan Driskell and the Eagles’ Jordan Mailata) are both 6’8”. The shortest players (the Chiefs’ Hollywood Brown and Nikko Remigio and the Eagles’ Ainias Smith, Jake Elliott, and Kenneth Gainwell) are 5’9”. Nineteen players are under 6’ tall.
- Weight: Twenty-seven players weigh more than 300 lbs., with the heaviest (the Eagles’ Jordan Mailata, also among the tallest players) weighing in at 365 lbs. Twenty players weigh under 200 pounds, with the lightest (the Chiefs’ Xavier Worthy) weighing in at 165.
More Fun Facts
Football fans love a hometown hero, a star player who grew up to lead the local team to Super Bowl glory.
This year there are just four players born in the same state as their team’s city (The Kansas City Metro Area includes counties in Missouri and Kansas). This is down from 18 last year.
- Number of Eagles born in Pennsylvania: One (Jahan Dotson).
- Number of Eagles who were born and attended college in Pennsylvania: One.
- Mike Pennel was the only Chiefs’ player born in Kansas, and Felix Anudike-Uzomah and Tershawn Wharton the team’s only players born in Missouri.
Can you name the team from the least-populated metro area? Find the answer in last year’s America Counts Super Bowl article.
How Many People Watch the Super Bowl?
Over 123 million people in the United States tuned in to watch last year’s game, a record for Super Bowl viewership and the most popular television program in American history.
According to Census Bureau data, the estimated resident population of the United States was 338,740,353 in February 2024. That means approximately 36% — more than one third — of the U.S. population watched the Big Game.
Super Bowl viewership has fluctuated over the years but increased by about 26% from 2021 to 2024, while the U.S. resident population increased steadily year over year. Interestingly the trends in annual percentage change in Super Bowl viewership and annual U.S. population change are similar, though there may not be a direct correlation.
