Bits & Pieces
Bite-sized morsels from the business beat
Super Bowl: A Numbers Game
The NFL’s season ends today with Super Bowl 60, in a showdown between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots.
If you’re looking for expert game handicapping and betting tips, you’ve come to the wrong place. Instead, Biz Whispers is here to offer some insights into the business side of the big game and the National Football League.
Game Tickets?
Ha! Good one!
Late last week the cheapest Super Bowl 2026 tickets were listed on StubHub at $6,652 after fees.
By Saturday Feb. 7, the day before the game, there were some available for $3,557 after fees.
Still, for that kind of money you could buy an 85-inch 4K television and have $1,258 left over for snacks.
How Many Eyeballs?
An estimated 213.1 million adults plan to watch the game, the National Retail Federation says.
The audience breakdown:
43 percent say the game is most important.
21 percent say the halftime show is most important.
18 percent say the commercials are most important.
Place Your Bets
How much will be legally wagered in the United States on the Super Bowl game?
A record $1.76 billion, the American Gaming Association says.
The trade group, which represents U.S. casinos, said the nearly 27 percent increase over last year reflects continued growth and strength of the legal state- and tribal-regulation sports betting market.
As for Iowa, there weren’t any public forecasts for Super Bowl bets. Last year, however, Iowans reportedly wagered about $21.4 million on super Sunday with Iowa sports books.
Non-Gambling Dollars
Game viewers are expected to spend $20.2 billion, or an average of $94.7, the National Retail Federation said.
Food and drinks are the most popular purchases, making up about 79 percent of spending.
Time to Wing It
Americans are expected to eat 1.48 billion chicken wings while watching the football game, the National Chicken Council said in its annual Chicken Wing Report.
That’s an increase of about 10 million wings over last year.
“Wings rule the roost” for the Super Bowl, NCC spokesman Tom Super said in a news release.
The council provided some quirky statistics to put 1.48 billion chicken wings in perspective:
Laid end to end, they’d stretch roughly 27 times from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., to Lumen Field in Seattle.
They’d circle the planet almost three times, “like a crispy equator.”
Eat one wing every 30 seconds and you’ll finish right around the year 3430.
The total equals one wing every 30 seconds since the fall of the Roman Empire.
More than 3,400 fully loaded semi-trucks would be needed to haul them all — enough trucks to make a 40-mile long convoy of nothing but wings.
Attendance
Super Bowl crowds are trending smaller.
Sports Business Journal cited an NFL spokesman who said the league expected about 64,000 people at today’s football game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.
What’s causing attendance shrinkage? A couple of things:
1) New NFL stadiums are smaller than they were in the past (see next item about new stadiums now under construction or on the drawing board).
2) The Super Bowl has more “seat kills” than any other sporting event. For example, there will be 6,500 media members at the game — 800 more than 10 years ago, SBJ reported.
Surge of New Stadiums
Soon there will be whole new playing fields for teams all over the National Football League. Here’s a roundup from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
Buffalo Bills. The club is building a $2.1 billion open-air stadium to open in 2026.
Cleveland Browns. The club plans to open a $2.4 billion enclosed stadium in suburban Brook Park in 2029.
Denver Broncos. The team is pursuing construction of a retractable-roof stadium in Denver that would open in 2031.
Jacksonville Jaguars. About $1.4 billion in major renovation work is under way. The restored stadium will add a roof but the stadium will not be fully enclosed.
Kansas City Chiefs. The club announced plans to move from Kansas City, Mo., to a new domed home about 20 miles away in Kansas City, Kan. Financing of the $3 billion venue will be a mix of pubic and private investments.
Tennessee Titans. A $2.1 billion enclosed stadium is under construction and is expected to open in 2027.
Washington Commanders. A $3.2 billion enclosed stadium is in the works. It would move from suburban Landover, Md., back to Washington, D.C., in 2030.
TV Commercials
Yes, it’s the ads — not the game — that draw many viewers to their televisions on the day of the big game.
This year’s game will be broadcast by NBCUniversal and the network said all commercial slots were sold. A 30-second spot was expected to fetch a price of about $8 million.
A few ads that generated pre-game buzz in trade publications include:
Anheuser-Bush. Sneak previews of AB’s Budweiser “American Icons” ad already have generated plenty of online clicks and viewers’ tears. The ad features Clydesdales and an eagle.
Grubhub. The food delivery company will promote a new plan in which it will no longer charge delivery and service fees on restaurant orders more than $50. None other than George Clooney will announce, “Grubhub will eat the fees.”
Pepsi. The soft-drink company touts its Pepsi Zero Sugar brand while poking fun at competitor Coke. In this ad, Pepsi features an iconic Coke figure — a polar bear — who chooses Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero in a taste test.
Redfin. The real estate company plans “The Great American Home Search,” an activation that provides consumers a chance to win a home valued at more than $1 million, the website Marketing Dive reports. The activation launches right after an ad from Redfin and parent company Rocket Companies during the Super Bowl. Marketing Dive said the spot includes a performance of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” By Lady Gaga.
Ritz. The snack cracker company plans a 30-second ad set on Ritz Island, a paradise whose resident included celebrities Bowen Yang, Jon Hamm and Scarlett Johansson.
Iowa Steakholder
At least one Iowa company has been a fixture near the Super Bowl game site all week.
Heartland Steak Co. has served up Iowa chops, steaks and other fresh meats to the cast and crew of the Dan Patrick sports radio talk show on location in San Francisco, about 40 miles up the coast from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
Fans of the Dan Patrick show should be well-acquainted with Heartland by now, as Patrick frequently pitches the products on the air.
Heartland partners with grocer Fareway Stores Inc. in Johnson, Iowa. It takes orders for bundles of meat that are shipped frozen to buyers’ doors.
No Chiefs This Year But…
… Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce continues to make news even though the Chiefs failed to make the playoffs.
Kelce will be part of a new national advertising campaign for the Sleep Number mattress company based in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reported.
He will buy some shares of Sleep Number common stock and has also been granted compensatory restricted stock units that vest over three years, the company said.
Kelce will become one of Sleep Number’s top shareholders with under 5 percent of company ownership, aligning his interests with that of all shareholders, the company said in a news release.
Thanks for reading!
This column is part of a fast-growing collection of reporting and writing from Iowa writers. Check out their work at the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.
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That’s a whole lot of big numbers!! Thanks, Rick.
Who Knew 🥰Another informative column. You really covered all aspects.