“The Chargers, also in 1994, made it to Super Bowl XXIX. The American Football Conference champion San Diego Chargers and the National Football Conference champion San Francisco 49ers to decide the National Football League champion for the 1994 season. The game was played in Miami. A devastating loss, but one which the legendary handicapper Danny Sheridan used to portray why the spread drives television viewing.

”It was the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XXIX. The San Francisco 49ers, favored by 18 points, were routing the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers had trailed by as many as 32 points, but had managed to cut the lead to 23. There are still a lot of people interested in the final score of this game,” said ABC announcer Al Michaels.

Indeed they were. With one minute to go, the Chargers were on the 49ers’ 20-yard line. A touchdown would have been meaningless to the outcome of the game, but for anyone betting, that meaningless touchdown would have meant that the Chargers had covered the spread. San Francisco held.”

The lesson Danny taught was that one of the most watched quarters in NFL history was when the game was a blow-out. People tuned in because of the “spread” and the size of that audience determined advertising rates. So billions of dollars of advertising revenue and billions of dollars of wagering revenue changed hands based on the “useless” last-minute drive.

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