Super Bowl Fact or Fiction
A great article by Bill Briggs exposes some Super Bowl myths.
I never win the typical football debates during Super Bowl parties. Thanks to MSNBC's Bill Briggs, I now have proof regarding Super Bowl facts and fictions.
As Super Bowl Sunday inexorably draws near, I find myself in the familiar, annual arguments with my football fan friends. No, not a Bears - Colts debate. No, not a "These aren't the '85 Bears" type retrospective tour of Super Bowls past. I'm talking about the old chestnut, "America shuts down for Super Bowl Sunday" speechifying.
Every year, we go to our good friends' house, which has the benefits of A) a humongous TV for Super Bowl (and commercial, and halftime show) viewing B) a large, flat backyard so we can pretend we know how to play football ourselves and C) Plenty of beer. I'm in charge of the artichoke dip, which apparently gives me the authority to also weigh in on the various debates regarding how America Shuts Down on Super Bowl Sunday. My opinion has always been that this is a media-fueled, ego-driven view of football fans across the country, although until now I've had no proof to back up my view. Our friends, meanwhile, have had plenty of anecdotal evidence: Toilets overflow at halftime, avocado sales go through the roof (for guacamole), etc.
Well, not anymore, my fellow skeptics! Our lovely friends over at MSNBC have given me plenty of ammunition for this year's Super Bowl party debate, thanks to contributor Bill Briggs. In his article, "Super Bowl Myths Debunked," he actually does the research I've been to lazy to do myself.
For example, the aforementioned overflowing toilets. Fact or fiction? Bill Briggs describes how this is, indeed, fiction. No history of a relationship between toilet troubles and half time after the 1930's, except once in the '80s that was actually due to "an aging infrastructure...prone to cracks." Ah-ha! Take that, Mr. America Shuts Down.
Another fact or fiction that turns out to be fiction, is the supposed skyrocketing sales of avocados, for Super Bowl Sunday parties. I always doubted this myself, but I thought, uneasily, that this may have been due to my bias towards my own artichoke dip. However, Briggs at MSNBC does the math for me: The biggest annual avocado purchasing event isn't even Super Bowl Sunday - it's Cinco De Mayo.
The Super Bowl myth that I found to be most striking, however, is the oft-repeated claim that (not unlike the Olympics) hosting the Super Bowl is a bonanza for a city's economy. Makes sense, on the face of it. After all, rabid fans converge on one place, buying beer and (too often) body paint. I'd have thought hotels, sports bars and other local businesses would profit enormously. Well, guess what - it aint true. The projected hundreds of millions of dollars a host city makes as fans shell out for Super Bowl expenses, is proven by an economist to be a fallacious relationship. Much of that money would be made anyway, if the host city is a touristy place. Further, in 1999 Miami's hotel occupancy rate was only 3.25% higher than the average January hotel occupancy rates of years 1998 and 2000, when, obviously , Miami was not host to the Super Bowl. Interesting.
So, the local economy of cities doesn't benefit hugely from hosting the Super Bowl. And this is a point I never bothered to argue about with our Super Bowl party hosts. To think, all that wasted opportunity! This year, however, I am armed with Bill Brigg's fantastic myth busting article. He exposes several other cool myths in it, by the way. It's gonna be a different kind of Super Bowl party for me this time. So pass me a beer; I'm trying to get a comfy seat.
