The nation's biggest game of the year was abruptly put on hold for 34 minutes due to a major power outage, which left parts of the Superdome stadium in darkness and television viewers without football or an explanation.

The Baltimore Ravens were dominating the San Francisco 49ers by a score of 28-6 in the Super Bowl when a majority of the lights in the 73,000-seat dome went out with 13:22 remaining in the third quarter on Sunday night.

Roughly two hours after the game and the Ravens' 34-31 Super Bowl victory, officials finally revealed that it was an "abnormality" in the power supply system that set off an automatic shutdown, which forced backup systems to start up, according to Sports Illustrated.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu addressed the power outage as "an unfortunate moment in what has been an otherwise shining Super Bowl week for the city of New Orleans. In the coming days, I expect a full after-action report from all parties involved."

While escalators did go out of service and credit card machines stopped working, auxiliary power kept the football field from going pitch black.

"So we have to spend 30 minutes in the dark? That was just more time for fans to refill their drinks," stated one of the fans, Amanda Black from Columbus, Miss.

Superdome operator SMG and Entergy New Orleans, which is the company that provides power to the Superdome, did release a joint statement in regards to the unanticipated darkness.

"A piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system," the statement said. "Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue. ... Entergy and SMG will continue to investigate the root cause of the abnormality."

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