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 | CNBC VIDEO |
 | Busting Super Bowl mythology Feb. 2: There are a lot of maxims repeated about the game. How many of them are actually true? “On the Money” anchor Melissa Francis reports. CNBC |
Myth No. 3: The silly sewage situation
At halftime, when millions of television viewers simultaneously head to the bathroom, municipal sewer systems will burst from the sudden rush of water.
Fact or fiction? That could really taint this year’s halftime show by Prince. Talk about Purple Rain.
Not to worry, though. If that was true, the highest-rated single program ever – the final episode of "M*A*S*H" in 1983 – would have flushed out that theory. An average audience of 50.15 million Americans tuned in to say goodbye to Hawkeye Pierce and crew. And the Super Bowl XL, which snagged the second-highest national audience ever — 45.87 million, according to Nielsen Media Research — didn’t unleash any regional toilet troubles.
The pipe-busting claim dates back to the 1930s, when massive flushes during radio commercial breaks did cause minor floods, according to Snopes.com, which tracks urban legends. There is only one known incident on Super Bowl Sunday. It came in 1984 when a 16-inch water main broke in Salt Lake City where an aging infrastructure was prone to cracks. But no causal link was found between the game and the gusher.
Answer: Fiction
Myth No. 4: Guacamole baloney
Two-thirds of all avocados are bought within three weeks of Super Bowl Sunday as Americans plow through the guacamole dip.
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Paul Sakuma / AP Biggest guac party in the U.S.? It's Cinco de Mayo |
Fact or fiction: “False,” says Jan DeLyser, vice president of marketing for the California Avocado Commission. “Not even close.”
Based on shipments sent out two and a half weeks prior to the game – to support promotions leading up to the Super Bowl – the commission expects Americans to purchase and consume 54.3 million pounds of avocados, or 5.4 percent of the total crop.
Last year, the Super Bowl didn’t even mark the biggest guac moment in America. That came during Cinco De Mayo celebrations which spurred the purchase of 52.6 million pounds of avocados, compared with the Pittsburgh-Seattle showdown which rallied sales of 49 million pounds of the fruit.
Answer: Fiction
Myth No. 5: Super Bowl-itis
The biggest national sick day hits the Monday after the game.
Fact or fiction: Super Bowl flu is quite contagious and quite common, says one employment productivity expert who has studied absenteeism in the workplace.
“We think there’s going to be a widespread impact across the country of Super Bowl-itis — and epidemic proportions in Chicago and Indianapolis,” said Stewart Itkin, vice president of Kronos, a Massachusetts company that solves workforce-related problems.
“The symptoms include exhaustion, headache and sore throat due to loss of voice,” Itkin said. “Fortunately, it only lasts 24 hours.”
Kronos recently surveyed approximately 1,300 adults over the age 18 and asked if they would be coming to work the morning after the game, Feb. 5. Five percent of the respondents admitted that they planned to call in sick. With the U.S. working population numbering about 140 million people, Itkin estimates that “come Monday, there will be 7 million empty cubicles around the country, costing employers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity.”
The disorder seems to be growing, too. A previous Kronos survey of workers suggested 1.4 million people would call in sick the day after the 2005 Super Bowl.
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Even worse, Itkin said, all those no-show numbers don’t include “people who decide to go to work with Super Bowl-itis, with symptoms that can be productivity-robbing.”
Answer: Fact
Myth No. 6: How many couch potatoes?
A global TV audience of 1 billion people typically tunes in to watch the game.
Fact or fiction: Each year, this one gets tossed around in the media as if that stat was as black and white as the referee’s shirt.
That may be due to NFL statements about potential global viewers. NFL.com says Super Bowl XLI will be televised in 232 countries and “available to an estimated worldwide audience of 750 million to 1 billion people.”
But the NFL doesn’t know how many people outside the United States actually watch the game, nor has the league ever “provided the media a figure of total worldwide viewership,” said Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman.
“We do know U.S. viewership because Nielsen tells us,” McCarthy added.
Nielsen cannot pinpoint how many people watch the game beyond American borders because “we are only able to track national numbers,” said Brandi Preston, a spokeswoman for Nielsen Media Research.
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The closest anyone has come to gauging global Super Bowl ratings is a tracking system devised by the New York-based media research firm Initiative, which collects data from 54 of the major TV markets from around the world. According to Initiative’s most recent measurement, Super Bowl XL posted an average audience of 98 million, with 151 million tuning in at some point.
If you’re number-crunching, that’s 849 million short of a billion.
One 2006 sporting event did come close to the 1 billion mark: The World Cup final between Italy and France drew an average audience of 260 million, and 603 million people saw at least part of the game.
Answer: Fiction
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