When the 54th Super Bowl rises next Sunday, it's time again for superlatives à la USA. It is almost irrelevant that the mega event is actually about sport. These are the most important fun facts about the game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Super Bowl, a political controversy
In the light of the largest sporting event in the world, everything seems a bit brighter, this also applies to commercials. The broadcaster CBS even broadcasts its own program every year, which deals exclusively with the commercials during the Super Bowl. As a result, airtime in game interruptions is expensive – a whopping $ 5.6 million is due every half minute on average this year. New York 's former mayor and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Michael Bloomberg, is reaching into his pocket more than anyone before him: the 77 year old billionaire leaps over eleven million dollars for 60 seconds, like "Business Insider" at the beginning of Annual reports.
It is hardly surprising that US President Donald Trump (73) doesn't want to be inferior to such prominent airtime in any way – he also allows himself a whole minute of campaign video. However, some of the competing companies fear that they will be broadcast immediately after the political contributions. According to a report by "NBC News", there is discussion about the influence of the exact placement of one's own spots. Apparently some do not want to be broadcast immediately after the campaign videos: "Nobody wants to catch this hand grenade."
The Super Bowl, a stepping stone for artists
The half-time shows of previous years show how positive the effect can be when you are at the Super Bowl: Maroon 5 ("Memories") have been able to play 434% more of their music since their appearance at the last Super Bowl, according to a report by "Forbes" sell than the year before. In 2018 Justin Timberlake (38, "Can't Stop the Feeling") saw an increase of 534% after his appearance and Lady Gaga (33, "Shallow"), headliner 2017, saw an increase in sales of a whopping 960%. No wonder that the artists are happy to forego a fee for a performance at the half-time show of the Super Bowl. This year the honor will be given to the two Latina icons Jennifer Lopez (50, "Hustlers") and Shakira (42, "Waka Waka").
The Super Bowl, a megawatt event
The Super Bowl's power consumption also reaches enormous dimensions. According to the German energy group Eon, the electricity consumption in the stadium alone corresponds to the average daily consumption of 7,300 households. Eon managing director Philip Beckmann calculates that this performance could be generated with a huge photovoltaic system on the stadium roof, which has at least 58,000 square meters of space: "After a little more than a day, the stadium could already cover its own power requirements for the Super Bowl. "
A solar power system on the roof of the Hard Rock Stadium could even generate the energy required for the TV broadcasts, but less quickly. With constant sunlight and 100 million viewers in the United States, it would take a little over 300 days for the 11.8 million kilowatt hours to be together. You could take a look in Miami at the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, or the Santa Clara Stadium in San Francisco, California. Both have boasted in the past few years that the bottom line was an emission-free Super Bowl. There is another favor for the environment this year: To avoid the huge amounts of plastic waste, fans get their drinks from aluminum instead of plastic cups.
The Super Bowl, an economic factor
The event also has a huge culinary impact: According to "Wallethub", over 1.4 billion chicken wings are eaten on Super Bowl Sunday in the USA alone. There are also over 3,000 tons of guacamole, 4,500 tons of spare ribs and 5,000 tons of chips. This, of course, requires drinks: Americans spend $ 1.3 billion on beer on Super Bowl Sunday and just over half a billion dollars each for wine and spirits. In addition, there are the many tourists who will travel to Miami for the game of the year. There are no exact figures for 2020, but estimates assume that local fans spend an average of $ 305 a day. The region around Miami is said to remain an economically positive effect of over $ 500 million.