The Super Bowl does not come from tortillas
But like a bag of Tostitos Scoops, it has become a vessel for guacamole.
Last year’s Super Bowl drew over 120 million viewers, many of whom watched intently.
So what matters more to people: the game or the guacamole?
To find out, I surveyed 300 Americans about 21 Super Bowl-related items. Respondents rated each as "Overrated," "Underrated," or "Not familiar with this." (The methodology and visualizations are shared in the "Steal-This" section below.)
The results
Most broadcast elements were rated as overrated by the majority of respondents – the halftime show, pregame coverage, coach interviews, even those close-up shots of kickers practicing into the net. Only "the actual football game" earned an "underrated" majority.
Meanwhile, every food-related item received a majority “underrated” rating, including pizza, dip, guacamole, and even “people who bring vegetables to a SB party.”
You can see the results below.
Speaking of overrated: 58% of respondents said Super Bowl commercials were overrated.
While you might argue that mere exposure drives brand growth, this lukewarm response is a nice reminder that most people simply don't care about ads as much as marketing professionals do.
Let’s analyze the fan bases: Chief fans (n=72), Eagle fans (n=123), and neutral viewers (n=96).
To classify fans, I used the "Michigan party identification measure," which is typically used to measure political affiliation. The process involved:
Initial sorting people based on team preference (Chiefs, Eagles, or neither).
Follow-up questions to gauge engagement level (casual vs. die-hard) for fans.
Additional classification for neutral viewers (genuinely neutral vs. disinterested).
(With a bigger sample, I could analyze the subgroups. But for our purposes I put all Chiefs and Eagles fans together.)
When I cut the results I found some predictable results.
Both fanbases defended their cities' reputations, Chiefs fans were more favorable to Taylor Swift, and neutral viewers found the game itself particularly overrated.
Methodology note: Given the sample size (n=300), you should ignore most of the differences; they’re almost surely due to chance.
Final note about cheese
For me, cheese is the undisputed winner not just of the Super Bowl but of American life. Every Olive Garden commercial lovingly pans across stretchy fettuccine alfredo, while Taco Bell has built its brand on hypnotic visuals of molten cheese pulls. Pizza commercials only reinforce this obsession. Like Wisconsin, we live in a cheese-based economy. We even spend more money on cheese than on computers.
Steal-This Resources:
• Data Visualization One and Two (re-use and edit this template with a free DataWrapper account).
• The Survey I used to collect data.
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Cheers,
Sam