It is the biggest sporting event of the year. More than $55 million are spent on this one day, every year for food alone. That doesn’t include the billions of dollars spent by advertisers trying to come up with the cleverest commercial of the year.
The Super Bowl truly is the one sporting event that can attract all walks of life. From the commercials we all love to the halftime show music lovers wait for each year, this is the event people can rally around every year.
Last year, more than 106 million Americans watched the most recognizable sporting day of the year, that’s almost one-third of the population.
The average NFL playoff game draws around 45 million people, that number more than doubles for the Super Bowl. People who wouldn’t be caught dead watching a football game at any other point during the year tune in this one Sunday night to take part in the American experience, and it shows in the money and time spent on advertising by all kinds of advertisers.
Every year, companies like E-trade, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, GoDaddy.com, and even Angry Birds get in on the action to have the most memorable commercial of the year. In fact, each new year is not just a competition among other businesses’ commercials from that year, but also a competition to see how well your 30 seconds measures up against the other greats in history. Ads like the Budweiser frogs, the Pepsi commercial with the geese, Mean Joe Green, the Jordan and Bird McDonald’s battle and Cat Herders, just to name a few. Commercials are the reason the Super Bowl has managed to have such a reach with such a wide variety of audiences.
Another reason to love the Super Bowl is the food. Everyone loves Super Bowl food – and lots of it. A 2006 study estimated that Americans consume 15,000 tons of chips, 4,000 tons of popcorn and over 12 million pounds of avocados on Super Bowl Sunday. That means, for every person watching the game, viewers eat six feet of chips from end to end.
What’s more, everyone loves a good musical interlude to hard-hitting football. Until the 1990s, the Super Bowl halftime show primarily consisted of college bands. But in 1993, that changed for good when Michael Jackson entertained the millions who tuned in to watch that year. For some people, the music is the reason to watch the game.
The Super Bowl also gives us some pretty good games most years. From the Titans coming up one yard short to the Patriots taking down the greatest show on turf before reeling off two of the next three. It’s really about the football. We all want to see the New York Giants take down the undefeated Patriots.
From food, to commercials – and oh, by the way, the football game – the Super Bowl is the greatest sporting event in the world.
