Color of Winning Gatorade Bath A Popular Choice For Super Bowl Betting

NFL News - February 1st, 2010 - Written by John Ritter

As the constant preparations build up to the Super Bowl only intensify with just a week left, NFL Betting Lines begin to shift as the winners and top performers are debated in the media.

Regardless of the outcome, there is one thing that can be counted on. The Super Bowl-winning coach will, in fact, get some kind of liquid poured on him by his team.

Bodog is offering prop betting for fans to predict what will happen during the aftermath of the championship game, including the de facto ritual that has appeared after every major football game since mid-80s.

Although the origins of the Gatorade shower have been debated, most historians give credit to New York Giants defensive tackle Jim Burt, who was hoping to lighten the team's mood during a miserable year in 1985.

Teammates continued the tradition after every win, pouring it on head coach Bill Parcells until the Giants won the 1986 Super Bowl. It has since grown into a cultural phenomenon, capping virtually every major football game since.

The ritual even crossed into the NBA in 2008, when Boston Celtics forward Paul Pierce drenched head coach Doc Rivers after beating the Los Angeles Lakers in The Finals.

The color of the bath has varied in every occurrence, without any real pattern, but it is typically either clear water or lemon-lime yellow. Thus, they are the two favored colors in Bodog's betting, giving clear the best odds at 7-to-5 and yellow the second-best odds at 5-to-1.

Red was the most-recent used color when Alabama doused Nick Saban upon winning the BCS National Championship, but is rare in the traditions history. It is the underdog to be used Sunday at 25-to-1. Pierce's famed shower in Boston's arena was also red.

The odds also predict it will be defensive players who will be doing the pouring with -165 odds. While at first it seems like a relative coin-flip, consider the fact that most games finish with the winning team's offense on the field because they run out the clock when leading by a wide margin. Although the game seems to be a shootout, and could finish with a small margin, the losing team will likely use their final drive to go for it on fourth down, and then turn it over if they don't convert.

Although that is debatable, the trend makes it more likely the winning team's defense will be off the field and able to provide the bath.

If players from both sides of the ball are holding the jug, the bet is void.