This is a guest post written by my nephew, Pervaan Ahuja. He is an avid football fan (Go Bears!) and awesome sports analyst, not really sure what he is doing working for AVG. At any rate, enjoy and don’t forget to comment below.
With names like Peyton Manning, Richard Sherman, and Russell Wilson dominating football news cycles these days, some lesser-known bits are being overlooked. With Super Bowl XLVIII just around the corner, here are some interesting tidbits about the Super Bowl that you may have missed.
1) Social Media is King.
After the conclusion of last year’s game, Twitter reported that 24.1 million tweets were sent during last year’s Super Bowl between the 49ers and Ravens. Somewhat surprisingly, most of these had nothing to do with the football action itself. From the always-funny commercials, to Beyoncé’s halftime performance to that awful Super Bowl blackout, tweeters had plenty to talk about.
Any guesses how many tweets we can expect this time around?
2) Price of a Super Bowl Ad goes up (again)
This one isn’t exactly little-known – we’ve all known for years that companies pay exuberant amounts for their 30 second Super Bowl ads. But what is overlooked is specifically why companies pay millions for these commercial spots.
The reason for this is that the Super Bowl has become an event unlike any other. Not only does it draw a huge audience – a projected 110 million people are expected to watch this year’s big game – but it also has incredible staying power. Viewers are far, far less likely to change the channel during the Super Bowl than another program, meaning advertisers can be sure their expensive investments are actually being seen and not just overlooked.
Advertisers dream about this sort of staying power, so you can be sure they don’t consider their million dollar investments a waste. Perhaps there may be a few affiliate marketing lessons to be learned here?
3) Already a Record-Breaking Super Bowl
Since the birth of the Super Bowl, the NFL has never awarded a cold-weather city a chance to host a Super Bowl. With this year’s Super Bowl being played in New York (or New Jersey, more accurately), we are guaranteed to have our first outdoor, cold-weather Super Bowl with temperatures expected to reach-low temperatures.
Current projections have temperatures hovering around 30 degrees at the start of the game (6:30 pm EST), which would easily break the previous record of 39 degrees in the 1972 Super Bowl between the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins. The cold may also help explain why ticket prices in secondhand markets have been lower than normal.
4) A Super Bowl of Food?
Not just a football holiday, the Super Bowl is the second largest ‘food holiday’ in America (apparently, this thing called Thanksgiving is first). Viewers across the country will be stocking up on favorites like pizza, wings, and nachos. Interestingly enough, guacamole is the hot snack of early 2014. The Hass Avocado Board projects avocado consumption around Super Bowl Sunday could top 100 million pounds.
Not to be outdone, chicken wings also remain popular. According to the National Chicken Council, fans will be eating 1.23 BILLION chicken wings this Sunday.
5) Location, location, location
You can argue whether the NFL made the right decision in allowing a cold-weather city to host its annual mega-attraction. What you can’t argue is that the NFL’s attempts to help American football spread internationally got a boost when they decided upon New York as the host city. With its status as America’s largest metropolitan area, New York attracts attention across the globe. I fully expect this upcoming Super Bowl to be, internationally, the most watched Super Bowl of all time.
In case you needed a reminder, don’t forget to tune into Fox at 6:30pm EST this February 2nd and join the rest of the world in watching the impending glorious three-hour battle between the Broncos and Seahawks.
