Millennials will spend the most for Super Bowl Sunday
For a lot of people, the Super Bowl is just a reason to party. And no one is partying harder than Millennials.
From chips and dip to chicken wings to new TVs, Millennials, specifically those ages 25 to 34, plan to outspend every other age group on Super Bowl Sunday, according to new data from the National Retail Federation.
They'll shell out an average of about $140 each for game day preparations, compared with an overall average spent of $82.
Most of that dough is going toward munchies, because any good Super Bowl party needs top-notch snacks. This age group is also the most likely to spend on a new TV to catch all the action, as well as furniture such as an entertainment center.
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The monetary investment may seem counterintuitive, given most young adults aren't even watching the Super Bowl for the actual football action.
When asked about the most important part of the Super Bowl, more than half of Millennials said they "watch" in order to catch the halftime show, review all the commercials, have an excuse to get together with friends and to eat a bunch of food. Only about a third said they're in it for the game.
More people in general, though, have gotten on board with celebrating the Super Bowl in some capacity. While more than half of people have said they didn't have Super Bowl plans in each of the past nine years, this year that dropped to 49.4%. Meanwhile, the share of people who plan to attend a party has risen from 26.8% in 2007 to 28.6% this year, and the percentage of people who plan to throw a party has grown even more, from 12.8% in 2007 to 17.7% this year.
And no party is complete without food. Food consumption, especially of the junk food variety, tends to pick up considerably ahead of the game. The week of the Super Bowl in 2015, sales of refrigerated dips increased nearly 48% to hit more than $21 million, compared with the prior week, according to data from market research firm IRI. A sampling of other popular items: sales of barbecue sauce increased nearly 41%, cream cheese went up about 30% and processed cheese up about 19%.
And of course, there's the guacamole.
This year, Americans are expected to eat 278 million avocados during Super Bowl week, a 13% increase over 2015, according to the Hass Avocado Board. That's more than 139 million pounds of avocados, or in other words, a whole lot of guac.
We're also gnawing our way through chicken wings, 1.3 billion of them, which is the amount the National Chicken Council expects people to eat next weekend. That's up 3% from last year.
During the week and/or weekend of Super Bowl, we will consume:
Contributing: Ben Mitchell