DOUG JOHNSON: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.

(MUSIC)

I'm Doug Johnson.

On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers face each other for the championship of the National Football League. This week's show is all about Superbowl Sunday -- the teams, the cities and the arty stadium where the players will meet.

(MUSIC)

The Cities

DOUG JOHNSON: Millions of Americans will settle down for a few hours of television on Sunday night. Or maybe settle down is the wrong term. Most Americans will be jumping up and down, cheering loudly or crying out threats and denunciations. All will be yelling directly at the television as if it can answer their appeals.

Can you guess what Americans will be watching this weekend? Of course! It is Super Bowl Sunday. Christopher Cruise has more about the competing teams and the cities they represent.

CHRISTOPHER CRUISE: The Green Bay Packers come from a city with a population of about one hundred thousand people. It is on the Fox River which feeds into the Green Bay of Wisconsin. The state is in the central part of the country.

Wisconsin produces beer, cars and machinery. But it is best known for making a lot of cheese. It is the second largest cheese producer in the country, after California. As a result, Wisconsin natives are known as "cheeseheads." Sports teams from the state of Illinois first used the name as an insult. But the people of Wisconsin welcomed the "cheesehead" title. They use it with honor.

In fact, Green Bay Packers fans wear large representations of that name at football games. At the Super Bowl this Sunday, Packers fans will be wearing bright yellow, triangular-shaped pieces of foam on their heads. The foam has holes all over it and looks like a big piece of cheese.

Packers Backers are some of the fiercest fans in American football. But the same can be said for supporters of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Pittsburgh is in western Pennsylvania. More than two million people live in the Pittsburgh area. Three hundred eleven thousand live in the city itself.

The Steelers were named after the industry that built the city -- steel. For many years, Pittsburgh was considered the steel capital of the world. But a recession in the nineteen seventies closed steel mills in Pennsylvania.

Now, Pittsburgh's economy depends mainly on its technology, education and healthcare industries.

And like Packers Backers, the Steelers fans have their own game-day tradition. The "Terrible Towel" is about 40 by 58 centimeters of bright yellow and black cloth, Steelers colors. "Terrible Towel" is written on it. Fans wave the towel around at games.

A radio announcer for the Steelers invented the "Terrible Towel" in nineteen seventy-five. Now Steelers fans have taken the towel all over the world. There are photographs of the towel at the top of Mount Everest, in war in Iraq and Afghanistan and even in space.

Two years ago, astronaut Michael Finke waved the "Terrible Towel" from the International Space State.

But it can also be found in great numbers in Green Bay Packers land. The McArthur Towel Company of Baraboo, Wisconsin makes the Steelers' "Terrible Towel."

Cowboys Stadium

DOUG JOHNSON: Now on to Arlington, Texas, home of Cowboys Stadium where the two teams will face each other Sunday in the Super Bowl. Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team, started thinking about building the stadium in the nineteen nineties. But, it did not open until May of two thousand nine. Cowboys Stadium is the largest domed stadium in the world. It is also the only stadium that exhibits museum-quality modern art. Faith Lapidus has more.

FAITH LAPIDUS: Cowboys Stadium cost more than one billion dollars to build. The huge stadium has a roof that opens and closes. It is also home to exciting works of art.

Two of them are by Danish Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. "Moving stars takes time" hangs in the main concourse. It is made of stainless steel, glass mirror, color effect filter glass, steel cable and other materials. It is a mobile, a moving sculpture. It looks like the Earth's solar system except shinier, smoother and sharper. But it is incomplete. There are just six floating objects.

Eliasson did this purposely. He wants to force the observer to stop and study the strange sight. He wants visitors to spend some time thinking and enjoying all that surrounds them everyday.

Some of the art works are clearly linked to football. One of these is "Coin Toss," by Texas-based artist Annette Lawrence.

This large installation of stranded cable spreads high across the main concourse. It looks like cables you find across the top of a bridge. They are shaped like an hourglass. Lawrence says the shape is linked to the promising moment at the start of the football game. The idea is of a circle turning over in space from one side of the room to the other.

Another sports-linked work is Mel Bochner's "Win!" The New York City-based painter used acrylic paint on a cement block wall. In large, bold, black letters he wrote words of battle like "vanquish," "conquer" and "clobber."

Cowboys Stadium may seem like a strange setting for art but this could be a sign of the future. New artists may have to seek unusual supporters as art museums and galleries find it increasingly difficult to raise money.