Want insights from this years Super Bowl LIII? Check out this blog!
Super Bowl LII between the Patriots and Eagles took place this past Sunday at U.S Bank Stadium in chilly Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was an upsetting outcome for our Boston office, but both teams played phenomenal football and it was entertaining to say the least. Since Skyhook has an office in both Boston and Philadelphia, we decided to make a friendly bet on the game. Needless to say, the Boston office now owes the Wayne, PA office bottomless New England Clam Chowder, which will be served by our head of HR while he wears a Nick Foles jersey.
While Super Bowl Sunday is a big day among football fans everywhere, it’s also an important day for brands, retailers, and advertisers. The big game brought an average viewership of 103.4 million for NBC, but this number does not account for the people that watched out of home. The substantial amount of viewers explains why the average price for a 30 second commercial was over $5 million this year. In addition to TV spending, brands also spend big money on advertising in the stadium as well.
Since brands and shopping habits are a prominent aspect of the game, we wanted to conduct a foot traffic analysis and dig into brand favorites, trends, and demographics amongst the Eagles and Patriots fans who attended the game to get an idea of fan personas.
Highlights
Demographics
One thing advertisers should always be aware of is who they are targeting and their demographics. By homing devices and cross referencing with census block groups, we found the following information:
Income: About 35% of attendees at the Super Bowl had a annual household income of over $100,000. This is higher than the national average of 27% in 2016. This information is not surprising given the average price of a ticket was $3,900. About 20% have an annual household income of $60,000-$100,000.
Age: Roughly 30% of Super Bowl attendees are ages 45-65 which is on par with the national average age of viewers who watch NFL. Only 13% were over 65 or between 20 and 30.
Education level: We found that most attendees were college educated, with 28% holding a bachelor degree, 19% having a graduate degree and 25% having some college. These numbers are a lot higher than the national average. About 28% of attendees never attended college.
Where did they come from?
We saw that more people traveled from out of state to attend the Super Bowl this year compared to last year, with about 80% traveling from outside of Minnesota. Unsurprisingly, some of the largest shares of attendees came from Minnesota, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California, Texas and New York. Last year, about half of attendees were native to Texas where the game was held.
Brand and Spending Preferences
An interesting trend that the data showed is that both fan bases are less likely to shop value stores such as at Walmart, Family Dollar and Dollar General. They are more likely to shop at higher priced stores such as Nordstrom, Lululemon and Dick’s Sporting Goods. With this data we can infer that attendees have higher income and are luxury good shoppers, which is also seen in the demographic data above. Interestingly, none of these brands advertised during this year’s game.
When it comes to each team, Pats fans are noticeably more likely to shop at Victoria’s Secret and Walgreens compared to Eagles fans.
Where did Super Bowl attendees sleep and go after the game?
Most Super Bowl attendees stayed close to the stadium at Starwood Hotels, Hilton Hotels, Marriott, Carlson, Marquette Hotel, Radisson and Graves 601 Hotel.
When attendees were hungry after the game, they visited Bank Restaurant, The Saucy Chicken, Huberts Bar & Restaurant, TGI Fridays and The News Room to get their food fix. It is interesting to note that most fans opted for local restaurants over chain restaurants.
Methodology
At Skyhook, our location network provides us with access to massive amounts of highly precise mobile device data. This data provides insights into anonymized behaviors of mobile users as they move throughout their day.
In this case, we gathered a sample of device IDs belonging to people who were at the game and ran these respective groups through our Skyhook Personas. Skyhook Personas are built by calculating how millions of mobile phones and other devices interact with millions of commercial places of business every day. This process calculates fan brand affinities based on where the devices have visited stores and other commercial businesses.
The Bottom Line
While Super Bowl 52 didn't end on a good note for us here in Boston, the data still tells an interesting story about who attended the big game. Stay tuned for a follow up analysis about whether or not advertisers saw increased foot traffic following the big game.
