When the Kansas City Chiefs square off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV this Sunday, some of the biggest winners won’t even have to strap on shoulder pads. The Big Game is also big business, generating millions in advertising revenue, liquor and food sales, and (pre-COVID-19) a considerable bump in travel, lodging and entertainment spending in the host city.
Stores are set to make $14.8 billion in sales around the game, with most of that money spent on food and drink to consume while watching, according to a recent survey for the National Retail Federation. But what other companies will notch a win regardless of the game’s outcome? Let’s take a look.
First off, there are the broadcasters. ViacomCBS Inc. (Tii:VIAC) will air this year’s matchup in what is sure to net the media giant millions. Networks pay big money for these rights – reportedly upwards of $1 billion a year – including regular-season games. One of the crown jewels in American sports, broadcasting the Super Bowl will provide the network with an inflow of advertising revenues for those much-coveted advertising slots. And those numbers add up fast. An average 30-second spot during last year’s Super Bowl broadcast (where 99.9 million Americans tuned in) cost an estimated $5.6 million. Fox Corp. (Tii:FOX), which aired the 2020 game, reported that advertising revenues increased 44% to $1.57 billion as a result.
Even if Super Bowl parties won’t have the same look and feel as is traditional, there will undoubtedly still be a sharp uptick in food deliveries. The hands-down champion of food delivery cuisine is pizza. More than 3 billion pies are sold in the U.S. each year (4 billion if you count frozen pizza). In fact, Americans love pizza so much that NASA funded and tested a 3D printer that can make pizza for astronauts. This is music to the collective ears at Domino’s Pizza, Inc. (Tii:DPZ) and Pizza Hut, which is part of Yum! Brands, Inc. (Tii:YUM). Local eating establishments will surely get a much-needed sales boost by way of orders placed on Uber Eats and Postmates by Uber Technologies, Inc. (Tii:UBER) and Grubhub Inc. (Tii:GRUB).
It’s not a Super Bowl party without some form of adult beverages. There’s a reason why Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (Tii:BUD) has become a Super Bowl advertising mainstay. Adults consume more beer on that particular Sunday than just about any other day of the year. Nielsen reported that Americans spend $1.2 billion on beer in the two weeks before the Super Bowl, with $568 million on distilled spirits and $652 million going to wine purchases. Another $1 billion is spent on the day of the Super Bowl buying up beverages brewed by Molson Coors Beverage Company (Tii:TAP), The Boston Beer Company, Inc. (Tii:SAM), or one of the many other players. However, don’t expect to see Clydesdale horses marching through the tundra this Super Bowl Sunday. Rather than spending money to promote Budweiser and Bud Light, Anheuser-Busch is instead donating the money toward pro-vaccine messages and COVID-19 relief efforts.
Whether it’s a football pool with friends or through one of the many sports betting apps, there will be billions wagered on the game’s outcome – and just about every other aspect of the match. The American Gaming Association, a national trade group for the U.S. casino industry, reported last year that a record 26 million American adults would wager an estimated $6.8 billion on Super Bowl LIV. That number could well rise this year as five additional U.S. jurisdictions have since permitted sports betting: Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Montana and Washington, D.C. That’s all good news for betting platforms by DraftKings Inc. (Tii:DKNG), MGM Resorts International (Tii:MGM), and Flutter Entertainment (Tii:PDYPF) the holding company for Betfair, FanDuel and others.
Whether it’s the ageless Tom Brady or rising superstar Patrick Mahomes that will earn the right to lift the Lombardi Trophy this year, the billions of dollars changing hands before and during the big game will undoubtedly result in big winners on and off the field.