It’s official, Super Bowl LI is here. Historically, the Super Bowl is the most watched TV broadcast of the year, averaging 112.3 million viewers over the past 5 years. Furthermore, the Super Bowl takes the cake as far as food consumption goes: football fans go all out in anticipation of the big game. To give you some perspective, the only holiday with more consumption than Super Bowl Sunday is Thanksgiving (Yum!).

If salty snacks, beer, and soft drinks are your things, this is your moment to shine. On average, Americans consume 11.2 million pounds of potato chips, as well as an estimated 4 million pounds of pretzels and 2.5 million pounds of nuts during the Super Bowl. And what’s the Super Bowl without a refreshing cold beer in hand? An estimated 51.7 million cases of beer are consumed on average. Americans also spend an average of $2.37 million on sodas and other soft drinks.

A warm welcome to the Super Bowl’s new teams: Wine & spirits.
While beer is traditionally the drink of choice for Super Bowl Sunday, over the past 5 seasons, consumers have acquired some new tastes: wine and spirits. According to Nielsen’s latest survey, “20% of legal age drinkers say they’ll drink wine, and 20% say they’ll drink some form of spirits.” Here’s a case in point: wine sales registered an average 9% increase during the week leading up to the Super Bowl over the past two years, while spirits experienced an 11% lift in sales.

According to Nielsen’s data, women are responsible for the increased sales of wine and spirits on Super Bowl Sunday. Up to 47% of women will tune in to watch the big game compared to the average 34% who typically do during regular season games. To this day, women account for most of the wine consumption (57% of women choose wine compared to 43% of men), and their increased interest in the Super Bowl helps explain why wine and spirits have been gaining yardage on the holiest day of the football season.

Beer must step aside and make room for some alternative beverage options. So, for all of you wine and spirits brands, this is the moment for some good ol’ Super Bowl themed advertising. It’s time to show Bud Light you also have what it takes with your own eye-catching displays and attention-grabbing promotions. If you’re already doing Super Bowl promotions, we applaud you! But you might want to double check the stores who stock your products to ensure they aren’t forgetting about your products in the name of Super Bowl’s veteran brands. You may find that your products are suddenly out of stock, missing out on additional sales, or that your promotions aren’t even in place.

At Observa, we help you measure every aspect of retail execution and deliver reliable, real-time data. We are here to help take full advantage of everyone’s favorite football game so that you can also experience that sweet (and salty) sales increase. Let us know what we can assist you with, and we will work with you to ensure a successful game day.
Enjoy the game!

SUPER BOWL FUN FACT: Super Bowl plans are made 41 days in advance. By comparison, New Year’s Eve plans are made 35 days in advance, anniversary plans are made 30 days in advance, and birthday plans are made 25 days in advance. It’s clear that football fans do not mess around when it comes to the Super Bowl.