That is, if they can get there. About five inches of snow fell there on Thursday and Friday closing airports; just three days after an ice storm brought much of the Dallas-Fort Worth area skidding to a lengthy halt.
The unusual weather blasts took a bite out of the $611 million economic benefit that the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee had estimated for the game.
Still, Sunday's Super Bowl will be watched by more than 151.6 million worldwide.
And, when you think Super Bowl Sunday — what comes to mind? OK, besides the football, the commercials and the point spread? The food, of course. Really, really bad food.
According to the people who track these things, Super Bowl Sunday is the second-most-popular at-home party date of the year. That's second only to New Year's Eve, when people get dressed up, drink bubbly and nibble on caviar — or at least something more refined than chomping on fried chicken wings.
The Super Bowl also is the second-largest food-consumption event, behind only Thanksgiving, when tradition rules the menu.
Ten million man (and women) hours will be spent on Super Bowl food preparation.
So, forget your New Year’s resolution to lose weight and eat better. The Super Bowl is a time to throw those resolutions out the window and focus on some truly awful food choices, bad for your waist and even worse for cholesterol count.
Here are a few savory – urp – examples:
Grab some Cheez Whiz and squirt away.Cheez Whiz isn’t actually cheese, it comes in a can and squirts out like whipping cream, but hey, who cares? It’s Super Bowl Sunday!
Marketing studies say there's a 15% increase in sales of processed cheese — that's $7 million worth of cheese — in the week before the Super Bowl.
Domino's Pizza expects to sell 1.2 million pies on game day, a 42% increase over a typical Sunday.
Avocado growers say fans will consume 8 million pounds of guacamole, more than on any day except Cinco de Mayo. Oh yes, don’t forget those 14,500 tons of chips sold to scoop up that guacamole.
Not keen on guacamole? Well, how about a bag of the 4,000 tons of popcorn to chomp on during the game? No? Then, how about a handful or two of the 28 million pounds of potato chips to be downed?
One grocery chain, Albertsons (2,300 stores), expects to sell 50 million sodas, 6.5 million bags of chips and 1 million pounds of chicken.
As for those awful, greasy fried chicken wings, Americans are expected to consume over 1 billion of them while watching the game this year.
Ugh, pass me the Maalox and the Imodium AD. Quick!
Feeling a bit queasy thinking of all that food in your tummy matched with the excitement of the game? Well, you’re not the only one.
On Monday, the day after the Super Bowl, antacid sales increase to 20 percent and 6% of all working Americans will call in sick the day after the Bowl.
One last thing about the Super Bowl — its ads.
The I4U News Super Bowl Guide for geeks is all about the ads and not the game. Super Bowl commercials are the main attraction for lots of viewers. Some, including those-who-will-not-be-named-in-this-household, will prerecord the 4-hour game just to be able to watch the ads and fast-forward over the game.
Fox has the Super Bowl broadcasting rights this year in the United States and sold out the available Super Bowl slots (30 seconds) at about $3 million very early on.
According to AdAge the Super Bowl 2010 contained almost 48 minutes of commercials. Will Fox top this number? Car makers are dominating the line-up this year. Newcomers this year include Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Best Buy and Pepsi is back after a year of absence. Some of the favorite Super Bowl advertisers are back again including E-Trade, Bridgestone, Anheuser-Bush, Audi and infamous Go Daddy.
And finally, here is the dumbest thing said prior to the game!
Reporter, to Green Bay Line Back Clay Matthews, whose dad played 19 years in the NFL: “I think for me, I mean, obviously, we have to try to score more points than they do.”
