All 44 Superbowl Rings To Date And Some Fun Facts About Them.

Don't fret, further in this post, each of the above rings are shown enlarged for detail.

One of the most recognizable pieces of bling are given to the players of the National Football League's annual championship game, the Super Bowl. Who makes them? Who gets them? What are they worth?

The rings almost always include the team's name, logo, and Super Bowl number (usually in Roman numerals). Most of the rings also have larger diamonds or diamonds made into the shape of the trophy, that represent the number of Super Bowls that franchise has won.

For example, Pittsburgh's 2008 ring has six trophies and six large diamonds, representing the six Super Bowls they have won to date:

above: The Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowl XLIII ring weighs 104 grams and incorporates 63 round, brilliant cut diamonds totaling 3.61 carats.

I don't know how much the total carat weight varies year to year or the actual market value, but here are some facts about the rings, courtesy of Wikipedia:

•The NFL pays up to $5,000.00 per ring, with up to 150 rings per team. The NFL pays for the cost of 150 rings to the winning team, at roughly $5,000 apiece, depending upon the fluctuating cost of gold and diamonds. If the rings are over the $5,000 limit, the team owners must make up the difference.

•Recent rings have been appraised in excess of $20,000, with some valued at $45,000. but manufacturers keep this information confidential

•The rings are made by the company of the winning team's choosing. The majority of the Championship Super Bowl rings have been manufactured by Jostens in Denton, Texas. They've made 28 of the past 43 rings.

•The Indianapolis Colts' Super Bowl rings were manufactured by Herff Jones (based in Indianapolis), at their Warwick, Rhode Island ring plant.

•Austin, TX based Balfour Company has manufactured numerous Super Bowl Rings

Tasteful? No.
Impressive? Yep.

The rings are made after the game for obvious reasons, so this years' ring is not included among the images below, shown in chronological order.

Rings from 1966-1974:

Rings from 1975-1983:

Rings from 1984-1992:

Rings from 1993-2001:

Rings from 2002-2009:


Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Green Bay Packers Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 6:30pm ET on FOX




The Official Super Bowl XLV site

SuperBowl XLIV: Cheerleaders, The Program, Tweets, Half Time Show, Commercial Sneak Peeks & More

This year's Superbowl XLIV ( that's 44 for those of you who don't read roman numerals) between the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints in South Florida has embraced technology with an online digital program, live chats and tweets and streaming video. Nice to see that the NFL is on their game, so to speak.

Bt that's not all, here's a few of the more fun bits about today's game.

In the opening festivities, Queen Latfah will sing America The Beautiful.
Carrie Underwood will be singing the National Anthem to open the game:



Live Chats
5:30 PM - 10:00 PM ETSuper Bowl XLIV
As Super Bowl XLIV unfolds at Sun Life Stadium in South Florida, NFL.com's Gil Brandt, Bucky Brooks and Pat Kirwan will be chatting live. Join Pat and Gil starting at 5:30 p.m. ET as they take your questions and discuss the Colts and Saints live from Super Bowl XLIV.

Superbowl XLIV Twitter
You can follow see featured tweets and pics. To add yours tag it #SB44.




Ad critic Barbara Lippert from Adweek gives us a sneak peek at some of the ads:

A sneak peek of the commercials from Adweek on YouTube

The Program:
The entire game program for Superbowl XLIV is in digital format online here, all 244 pages of player stats, pics, article and ads.

Flip through it here.

Program print ads:
The scariest ad in the program (the Huddler) and the most clever ad in the program (Bridgestone):

The most clever print ad in the program is subtle, if you don't get it, look again.

The Who
The half time show brough to you by Bridgestone (who coincidentally had that clever ad in the program shown above right): The Who



Click below to enlarge and see info about the team players:


Can't forget the cheerleaders!

The Colts Cheerleaders:


learn more about the Colts cheerleaders here.

The Saints Cheerleaders (known as the Saintsations):


the Saintsations official site


The game airs on CBS at 6pm Eastern Time


See the official site here.

And, of course the Bling. All the Superbowl rings ever made.

The Rings:

above: Last year's Pittsburgh Steelers Superbowl Ring

Unfortunately, we don't get to see the winning team's ring until after the game, but to see images of every single Superbowl ring to date and details about them, go here.