Over the years, Super Bowl Sunday has turned into an unofficial American holiday; kinda like Halloween. It has all the parties, all the TV specials, and all of the special costumes & food to go with it. Yes, it has all the hype & energy of major holiday. All it’s missing is a sanctioned day off from work & school (but, ironically, you almost don’t need it)! Not to mention, people spend money like crazy on wings & pizza on top of all the other things that come with hosting a party. (I feel bad for all of the people who took bets on the Denver Broncos to win. Meanwhile, I’m jamming out to the new anthem of Seattle: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ song “Can’t Hold Us” every time the SeaHawks score a touchdown.)
I did some research and found out just how much money people spend on Super Bowl Sunday. Last year, over 3.5 million Americans bought brand new furniture just for the occasion and probably to impress their friends coming over for the super bowl party. The hosts also collectively bought (& consumed) 1.25 billion chicken wings, 15,000 tons of chips, and 27 million slices of pizza (and that’s just from Pizza Hut & Domino’s, who knows how many more from everyone else)! You can find these and more statistics about the Super Bowl at this link: http://www.odysseynetworks.org/video/5-things-you-dont-know-about-the-big-game.
The amount of positive impact that we could have upon the world with the same amount of money is staggering! Imagine if a major company invested in world hunger instead of advertising on a Super Bowl commercial. According to SciencePorn on Twitter, “The cost of the halftime commercials during the Superbowl could actually feed the world’s entire refugee population… twice.” It’s statistics like this that make me wonder if we are really investing in the right priorities.