Super Bowl Sunday by the Numbers

Cole Thomas, Reporter

Another NFL season culminated Sunday with the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots squaring off in Minneapolis for the Lombardi Trophy.

Alongside the 66,655 spectators inside US Bank Stadium witnessing NFL history, friends, families, fans, and people looking for an excuse to overindulge a tad on a Sunday night will be glued to TV screens across America to take in Super Bowl 52.

The Super Bowl runs much deeper than the game though. The fan favorite halftime show, endless array of food and beverage, irregular bets, and the always hilarious commercials are all reasons why Super Bowl Sunday has been looked forward to by fans since the first kickoff last September. With all the festivities in place, the statistics are bound to be staggering. From food to bets to viewing location, they have all been broken down.

According to the staff at statisticbrain.com, fans will consume 125 million chicken wings, use 71 million pounds of avocados for guacamole, and will eat 11.2 million pounds of potato chips. Local pizza parlors always have a field day during the big game, as pizza deliveries rise 35% on gameday, contributing to the roughly 4 million pizzas that will be eaten.

And to wash it down, fans 21 and over will drink 50 million cases of what we’ll call “adult beverages”. To put that in perspective, Noah Kaufman of foodandwine.com added that the total amount consumed could fill 169 Olympic swimming pools.

Side note, statisticbrain.com also reported that antacid sales rise 20% the day after the Super Bowl. Happy gorging football fans!

While the food is a staple of Super Bowl Sunday, Las Vegas has also put out some interesting statistics for fans looking to make an easy buck and bet on aspects of the game.

Stephen Campbell of oddshark.com gave a break down on some bets that may be overlooked in any other scenario.

According to Campbell, if you want to put cash on which way the coin will fall during the opening coin toss, tails never fails. 53% (or 27) of Super Bowl coin tosses have landed tails, while the other 47% (or 24 tosses) has landed heads. If you’re feeling patriotic and wish to bet on the length of the National Anthem, the past 51 have averaged out to 1:58.6. Within that, you can bet on whether Pink, who is singing the national anthem, will be airborne at any part of the anthem, what color her hair will be, and if she’ll accidentally omit any words from the anthem.

Campbell also added that after the game kicks off, you can bet on the usual “who will score first” or “who will get the ball first”. But of course, the bets don’t stop there. You can bet on the over under of how many times Carson Wentz, the Eagles’ young starting quarterback who was injured in the latter half of the season, will be mentioned during the broadcast. Fan of supermodels? You can pick the over under on how many times Patriot quarterback Tom Brady’s wife Gisele Bundchen will be cut to during the game.

Finally, statisticbrain.com broke down where fans would be watching from. 46% of people plan to watch from home with their immediate family, 45% will attend a Super Bowl party, 3% will watch from a bar or restaurant, and the other 7% still need to make plans.

So there you have it, the Super Bowl broken down in all of its culinary, alcoholic, financial, and communal glory.