Football fans are gearing up for one of the biggest sporting events of the year, the Super Bowl, next month. However it is not the game nor the halftime show that people are most excited about-but rather the food, new research has shown.
In a survey of 2,000 adults in the United States aged over 21, 48 percent of Americans were said to care about which football team wins the game.
The survey, conducted by Talker Research in December 2024 on behalf of antacid tablet TUMS, found that 1 in 4 respondents are more interested in the food than the game, while 54 percent believe the food spread can make or break the entire Super Bowl experience.
America's love for the food element of the annual sporting event comes as no surprise because "the Super Bowl is more than just a championship game," Donovan Conley, a University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) communication studies professor, told Newsweek.
Conley is a rhetorician who researches how cultural influences shape our everyday habits, preferences, biases and desires, particularly in the area of food and taste.
"I look for how food discourse takes shape across the 'surface' of cultural practices," Conley said, and "taste, as a social and material phenomenon, is my core interest."
Conley added that the Super Bowl is "a national event that brings together various strands of culture and economics," from sports to music and fashion, such as the halftime show, and "the arts of commerce," such as the famed commercials.
It is also "a uniquely social event" that brings together those who "often have little to no interest in the sport of football," Conley noted.
"The food bridges this gap between the game watchers and the game watcher adjacents. It gives the non-football folks something to 'root for,' perhaps," Conley said, adding that "food plus halftime show plus cinema-scale commercials is like a secondary content package for the non-sport lover."
The recent survey found that food is also considered to be more exciting than the commercials by 38 percent of Americans, while 47 percent say it is more exciting than the halftime show.
Six in 10 people will be hosting or attending a Super Bowl party, and if they were hosting, more than half say they would plan out their game day menu at least a month in advance.
The top three foods that Americans feel are essential for any Super Bowl event are buffalo and/or hot wings (named by 49 percent), barbecued meat (37 percent) and seven-layer dip (36 percent).
A mix of sweet and savory snacks also ranked high on the list of necessary snacks, including nachos (named by 30 percent), cookies (25 percent) and potato chips (24 percent).
Super Bowl foods are "fun foods," Conley said, that "tend toward big flavors and simplistic preparations," such as chips and dips, wings and wieners, sliders and stuffed peppers, pizzas and pigs-in-a-blanket.
"Abundance, variety, and easy portability are alluring qualities for game watchers, offering quick bites between and during plays," the professor said.
Conley added "there is an obviously 'gendered' aspect to Super Bowl snacks," noting "the obvious coding of football as America's most manly and patriotic popular sport" and SNL skits that "poke fun at gendered traditions involving couches and kitchens."
Conley said that football is "the most popular, commercially successful sport in this country overall, with all the attendant practices and traditions involving the military, hip-hop and country music, heteronormatively 'hot' cheerleaders, truck and beer and crypto commercials, and the like."
This gendered element "perhaps explains the utilitarian nature of the foods-simple, quick, big flavors, carb-and-protein heavy fare," Conley added.
Vegetables might sneak their way onto the table, often alongside a platter of wings, and you may find "somewhat healthy" options with dips, such as guacamole and salsa. "But dietary concerns are typically pushed aside for this momentous day," the professor said.
10 Foods Americans Consider Necessary for a Super Bowl Event
Source: A December 2024 survey conducted by Talker Research behalf of TUMS.
Do you have a food-related story to share? Let us know via [email protected] and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
Related Articles