The MR PORTER guide to the people you’ll meet (most likely on the couch) during this week’s big game.

This Sunday’s Super Bowl is more than a football game – it’s a cultural phenomenon and the most unifying event in the US sporting calendar. Across state lines and political affiliations, this showpiece draws more viewers than any other. Last year’s US audience alone was 172 million people and the event is catching on worldwide.

But just because millions watch the Super Bowl doesn’t mean they view it the same way. There are many ways to watch the game of the year, and just as many types of viewer. Some sit on the edge of the sofa, passionately following the ball flying back and forth. Some are just there to see Mr Justin Timberlake (who’s doing the half-time show this year) and, well, some are just in it for the food. Which camp or, rather, couch do you sit in? Scroll down and find out.

The full six hours of pre-game coverage are not enough. The super-fan dissects the match from every angle leading up to kick-off. He cannot join a party of people who do not fixate on the details to the same level he does. It would not be right. He follows along on Twitter, where pros pull apart every formation and development. If you hear phrases such as “cover-two defence” or “blitz packages”, then you are in deep with a gridiron obsessive. He’s got all the stats memorised and regularly corrects the commentators with exasperated disdain. He will usually have the game at high volume and will choreograph carefully timed breaks for beer and pizza (like a marathon runner, but with junk food). Do not talk to him unless you are offering well-observed analysis he will agree with or, preferably, has already made. And don’t dream of taking his seat, which will invariably be about 10in from a wall-mounted supersized ultra-HD 4K television with stadium surround sound.

There are many ways to gamble on the Super Bowl that have precious little to do with sport. You can bet on how long the national anthem will be or which song Mr Timberlake will sing first. Or how many times Brazilian supermodel Ms Gisele Bündchen, wife of 40-year-old Patriots quarterback Mr Tom Brady, will flash up on screen. (The current line is over/under 1.5.) Then there’s the game itself. Common bets are whether the pre-game coin toss is heads or tails, how many combined points the teams will score, who will score the first touchdown, and on and on. All of which give rise to this particular type of fan, who lives for the side action. It’s likely he has no loyalty other than to his own bets, and probably doesn’t care who wins – just by how much. When he talks animatedly about “the spread”, he’s not referring to his host’s seven-layer dip. He has the shakes of somebody strung out on espresso, but that’s because he’s feeling the rush of having eight bets going simultaneously. Wait – was that the seventh mention of Mr Brady’s age or the eighth? Who’s keeping a goddamn tally here?

This familiar figure is pointedly not a sports fan. In fact, he spends the entire game eye-rolling and live-tweeting snarky comments about anything but the football. He pays closer attention when the game takes a break and the ads begin. Or when the cameraman pans for celebs in the crowd. Look out for Philadelphia native Mr Bradley Cooper, an Eagles superfan, likely to be in the owner’s box. He wants to be in on the cultural conversation come Monday morning, and will always have a hot take ready for the best ad and the worst, the standard of the half-time fireworks and what the players’ wives wore. If there’s been a “wardrobe malfunction” à la Ms Janet Jackson (the most famous of all half-time incidents), he wants to have seen it and tweeted the hell out of it – live, with all of the hashtags. All of them.

This host thrives on a sense of occasion and anticipation. He probably hosts Oscars parties as well. And new-season-of-Game-Of-Thrones parties. Basically, he just loves parties, irrespective of what they may or may not be celebrating. For him, the superbowl is a wonderful excuse to have a large number of people over (all of whom are also indifferent to the game) and insist on serving elevated versions of what people normally eat at football games. So, no bad pizza and beer, but thin-crust stone-baked varieties with vine-ripened tomatoes and lambic Belgian ale. This is where you go to eat well. (“Smoked salmon, anyone? Goes rather well with this sancerre.”) The game is often on in the other room. If it were a replay of a Super Bowl from five years ago, nobody would notice. The Patriots always win anyway, don’t they? Make sure you try the chicken wings. It’s all about the spicy dry rub.

He bleeds for his team. He has not only considered painting his face in team colours, but has done it. He loathes the opposition with a frenzied fury usually reserved for trench warfare. He is a partisan, and he’s probably got a tattoo commemorating a great victory that he had no part in other than cheering quite loudly while jabbing a foam finger to “Sweet Caroline”. He’s known the triumph of victory and secretly feels that he is vital to the cause, thanks to his bizarre superstitions that border on OCD. He’s also known the misery of defeat as if he were on the field itself, and has blamed himself for that time he watched the game without wearing his lucky pin badge. Idiot! The partisan enjoys watching with fellow travellers who share his fervent belief that this game is the most important event in the history of civilisation. Everything is seen through the filter of fandom. The refs and the announcers are aligned against them, the few, proud believers. As the hype builds to a frenzied crescendo, he may well startle fellow guests with the vein-bulging intensity of his primeval support.

Football is an archaic and violent game that is infinitely inferior to real football, which is, naturally, the beautiful game, played by artistes in Europe and South America. This is the opinion intoned by your friend who studied abroad and never lets you forget it. He might be wearing a cashmere rollneck and love Mr Eric Cantona’s poetry. He insists Mr Lionel Messi is the best athlete who ever lived and says “Bar-the-lona” with a needlessly strong accent. He passes on beer in favour of a biodynamic wine, preferably from an undiscovered producer in Languedoc. He annoys the hell out of everyone. And, apparently, he can recite every word of Mr Timberlake’s “SexyBack”. Who knew?

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