The Super Bowl isn’t just a football game. It’s an economic juggernaut with staggering figures attached to every touchdown, halftime show, and commercial break. Can’t get enough about the upcoming Super Bowl LIX? Continue reading for the top 9 surprising stats and fun financial facts about the Super Bowl.
- The Super Bowl Indicator
- From $12 to Astronomical
- A Big (Game) Investment
- New Orleans Scores Big Easy
- Chicken Wings and Beer Bonanza
- Betting on Super Bowl LIX
- Pro Bono Super Bowl Performances
- Super Bowl Earnings
- The Super Bowl Ring
1. Stock Market Superstitions
The quirky “Super Bowl Indicator” suggests that an NFC team win bodes well for the stock market, boasting a 68 percent accuracy rate through 2023. The (real or imagined) corollary between the Super Bowl outcome and the NYSE was the brainchild of New York sportswriter Leonard Koppett, a distinction noted by Investopedia. Koppett’s area of journalistic expertise was actually baseball, but in 1978, his talent with statistics led to his theory of a link between football’s pinnacle game and investment performance.
2. Super-Sized Ticket Prices
Tickets for Super Bowl LIX are a significant investment, with the cheapest seats currently at $5,600 on TickPick and an average admission costing $26,000 on StubHub. Compare that to the $12 ticket price for the very first Super Bowl in 1967 (cited by NBC4 New York), and you’ll see how times—and costs—have changed. That’s a 36,101,180 percent increase over 57 years.
3. Million-Dollar Commercials
A 30-second ad at last year’s Super Bowl cost over $7 million. For context, USA Today cites that the same slot during Super Bowl I was a mere $37,000. That’s an 18,819 percent increase.
The investment is a worthy one. Analysts have found that almost half of Big Game watchers are in front of their sets only for the commercials. A significant subset of them do, indeed, purchase a product advertised during the broadcast.
4. Host City Jackpot
This year, New Orleans is hosting the game, and the city anticipates a $500 million economic windfall in the aftermath. Although that impact may pale in comparison to the $2.4 billion attributed to the annual Down Easy tourism trade, it does represent about 4.8 percent of the total visitor contribution, accumulated over only three or four days.
5. Tasting and Toasting
Super Bowl Sunday means serious food and drink consumption. The National Chicken Council, Washington, D.C., estimates that an average chicken-wing eater chomps through seven of the spicy, sauced treats at events like a watch party. At a rate of seven per serving, 1.37 billion wings would serve 195.7 million people.
In aggregate, those wings are washed down with $1.3 billion in beer.
6. Wild Wagering
Viewers and fans who are eager to get some skin in the Big Game are expected to wager more than $136 billion on the Super Bowl. It’s possible to lay some funds down on just about every aspect of the event, including:
- The length of the singing of the National Anthem
- Temperature at kickoff
- The possibility of wardrobe malfunctions during the halftime show
- The color of Gatorade dumped on the winning coach
That estimated $136 billion in wagered funds would cover the $10 purchase of 1.36 billion upscale toasters banks once gave away to new account openers.
7. Halftime Hype
Performers like Rihanna and Usher don’t get paid for their halftime gigs, but they reap the rewards through massive exposure. Rihanna’s music sales soared 390 percent after her 2023 performance, according to Moneywise.
The windfall of a Super Bowl halftime performance is a hefty reward for what is, on average, a 12- to 15-minute gig.
8. Players’ Payday
In 2023, players on the winning team received $157,000. For that one day’s work, the athletes will make just slightly less (about $10,000) what salary.com estimates a commercial loan officer makes in a year.
9. Sparkling Rewards
The winning team’s average Super Bowl rings cost $40,000 each, depending on customizations requested by the recipients. The jewelry site Color and Grace reports that details such as metals (gold vs. platinum), gemstones (diamonds), custom designs (team logo, player’s name), all affect price. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the purchase price for a Super Bowl ring was in the $5,000-$10,000 range.
Super Bowl LIX: A Financial Spectacle
Super Bowl LIX will be, like its forebears, a spectacle not just for sports fans but for anyone intrigued by the financial ecosystem surrounding this massive cultural event. From astronomical ticket prices to an unexpected influence on the stock market, it’s clear the Super Bowl is much more than just a game.
