This Sunday, there will be plenty of snacks, greasy Buffalo wings and oversized televisions at parties across the country.
Oh yeah, and there is a football game on too. The Super something-or-other.
Surrounding the biggest game in football, and possibly all of sports, retailers are having a happy payday selling high-definition TVs, furniture, sports apparel, food and drinks to overzealous Super Bowl fans.
The National Retail Federation reported last week that consumers plan to purchase 3.9 million televisions for Super Bowl Sunday.
So let’s say that all of these super-spenders pay $500 for a television. That’s $1.95 billion dollars earned for electronics alone. That doesn’t include the 1.8 million pieces of furniture the NRF estimates will be sold.
Don’t forget the party favors, food and $20 for the office football pool. By the time you’ve paid for all of that, you won’t be able to afford the gas to get to work the next day.
What happened to the days of sitting around the TV, playing poker for nickels and just cheering for a good game? Nowadays it seems you have to have a flamboyant fireworks display just to get your neighbor to say hello to you on super Sunday.
When the game finally does come on, the sad fact is that viewers will anxiously be awaiting the all-too-famous Super Bowl commercials, which are just another moneymaking machine.
According to Fox, which will be airing the Super Bowl at 6 p.m. Sunday, the average cost for a 30-second ad is $2.7 million, slightly more than the $2.6 million price tag for last year’s event. If there are 20 commercials, that would equal $54 million spent on the time most people use to relieve themselves.
So let’s add this up. After the NRF reported $59.90 spent per 158 million people who are expected to watch the game this year is added to the $54 million on ads, $9.46 billion has bent spent on entertainment and sales pitches.
Oh, and that football game that everyone’s so excited about: tickets are being resold for around $3,200 a piece – if you’re lucky.
Here’s what I think we should do – take all the money we would have wasted on the game, bet it all on the Patriots and never worry about a recession again.
