TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Easter Sells More Beer Than The Super Bowl?

ADVERTISEMENT

By WALT BELCHER

wbelcher@tampatrib.com

Published: January 27, 2009

You would think that Super Bowl Sunday tops the list of events that result in the most beer sales each year.

After all, the event is as much a tribute to Budweiser as it is to football.

But think again, hangover breath. The Super Bowl ranks eighth, according to the Nielsen Co.

It comes in after the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's and Easter.

Easter? Somehow that doesn't seem right. Mention Easter and you think of hard-boiled eggs, chocolate bunnies and baked ham - not a six-pack.

But according to Nielsen, Americans bought more than 53 million cases of beer during Easter week last year compared with 51.7 million cases sold in the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLII.

Those vidbits of information are contained in Nielsen's annual "Guide to the Super Bowl," an exhaustive compilation of statistics about viewer consumption related to the game.

The top snack, for example, is the potato chip. We shelled out $146,988,512 on chips for the last Super Bowl - way more than the $31.6 million spent on cheese puffs or the measly $5.5 million spent for pork rinds.

The most-watched commercial during the telecast of Super Bowl XLII was a Victoria's Secret commercial that ran at 9:44 p.m. It was seen by 103.7 million viewers, but the most remembered commercial was a FedEx spot in which a rival shipping company was using carrier pigeons with disastrous results (check it out at Walt TV on TBOextra.com).

Nielsen even tracked "the most talked about" commercial, which according to online traffic and YouTube was the Justin Timberlake commercial for Pepsi.

The ratings company also has measured the impact of performing at halftime on an artist's CD sales. Tom Petty, who was the last Super Bowl headliner, saw his "Greatest Hits" album jump 196 percent in weekly sales (33,000 CDs sold). Sales doubled for three of Janet Jackson's albums following her wardrobe malfunction in 2004.

Bruce Springsteen, this year's halftime performer, has a new album, "Working on A Dream," coming out today.

BEST DAMN SPORTS: Fox Sports Network's sassy "Best Damn Sports Show Period" will originate live from the courtyard in Centro Ybor from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Host Chris Rose will be joined by former running back Eddie George and Antonio Pierce of the New York Giants. Among the expected guests are B.J. Upton, Jeff Garcia, Joey Galloway, Phil Simms, Joe Montana, Joe Theisman and Michael Strahan.

The public can drop by and watch the action.

NFL NETWORK HERE: The NFL Network is offering wall-to-wall coverage of Super Bowl week with 215 hours of programming. They kicked it off on Saturday with a marathon of highlight reels from all 42 Super Bowls.

It continues today with every NFL-related news conference live, including the head coach news conferences, Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2009 announcement and even the Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band news conference.

NFL Network has hired Buccaneers linebacker Derrick Brooks and former Buccaneers safety John Lynch for some commentary duty this week. They will provide analysis on Thursday's "NFL Total Access at the Super Bowl" (11 a.m. to 7 p.m.) and on "NFL GameDay Morning," the pregame show at 11 a.m. live from Raymond James Stadium with former Buccaneer Warren Sapp.

Sapp is in town for a special edition of Showtime's "Inside the NFL" at 9 p.m. Wednesday that will originate from the NFL Experience. He will be tooling around Tampa in a convertible showing off all the hot spots.

TUNE IN TONIGHT

"The Mentalist," 9 p.m. CBS

Crime solver Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) suspects a psychic is a killer and sets up a seance to expose the fake.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT