SUPER SPENDING
Super Bowl Sunday may be the biggest day of the year for football fans, but it’s also a big day for people who sell big-screen TVs, recliners and pizza.
Yes, some sports fans are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a TV just to watch the game. Jim Ferrero, of Yardley, Pa., has done so twice.
"I actually bought another TV last year specifically for the Super Bowl," Ferrero said at a suburban Philadelphia Best Buy on a recent afternoon. "And then this year, I was thinking the same thing: ‘Might as well get another one.’ "
Ferrero, who dropped $2,200 on a 46-inch Sharp flat screen, is far from alone. While Best Buy’s TV department was far from crowded, a steady stream of customers was wheeling flat panel TVs to the register.
TV and furniture companies run special promotions during the period leading up to the Super Bowl to position their products as big game must-haves. Pizzerias stock up on dough and toppings and require every employee on the payroll to work Super Bowl Sunday. And beer companies make sure their distributors are well supplied.
Scott Hanning, vice president and general manager of Lee’s Discount Liquor in Las Vegas, said beer sales jump significantly during the weekend of the Super Bowl.
"It will be primarily a beer holiday," Hanning said. "It is very similar to Labor Day and Memorial Day."
Last year during Super Bowl weekend, the nine Lee’s stores in Clark County sold the equivalent of 153,978 cans of beer.
Last weekend, which didn’t feature any major sporting events, Lee’s stores collectively sold more than 106,459 cans of beer, Hanning said.
Hanning is certainly happy to embrace the Super Bowl spike, but he said holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas can be more profitable.
"In all reality, we prefer wine holidays," Hanning said. "You don’t need to see a lot of wine to produce the same dollar sales as beer."
Beer isn’t the only thing on customers’ minds before the Super Bowl. Many have much bigger-ticket purchases in mind.
"There’s historically been a significant bump (in TV sales) in the week leading up to the Super Bowl," said Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD Group in Port Washington, N.Y.
Corporate electronics retailers in Las Vegas wouldn’t share local numbers.
But shelves and parking lots at Best Buy and Fry’s indicate the big game — the National Football League is notorious for threatening legal action against businesses who use "Super Bowl" without permission — is clearly a big marketing tool.
At Best Buy on Maryland Parkway, one of the first displays in the store is a 42-inch plasma TV for $1,099. Another display featured a picture of a Best Buy employee holding a football near a television playing footage from old football games.
At Fry’s on Las Vegas Boulevard South, a delivery truck loaded with 73-, 65- and 50-inch televisions was poised to head out to customers.
Inside, Fry’s installers talked with a district manager about how the company could get store sales people to encourage customers to spend money on installation.
Other add-ons prominently displayed with the televisions included a liquid screen-cleaning product for $19.99 and cables made to carry High Definition signals for $69.99.
"You don’t want to be disappointed when you have spent that much money and the picture is grainy," Best Buy spokesman Brian Lucas said.
Lucas didn’t have specific numbers for Las Vegas, but said Best Buy booked "double-digit" increases in installation calls during the last two weeks of January.
Last year, U.S. retailers sold 61 percent more TVs the week before the Super Bowl compared to the previous week, NPD said. Revenue from TV sales jumped 46 percent that week.
Once football fans start redesigning their TV viewing experience, they also often decide the old threadbare sofa no longer makes the cut.
At La-Z-Boy, January and February are among the strongest months for sales of recliners and sofas with reclining sections, said Doug Collier, chief marketing officer.
La-Z-Boy doesn’t release sales figures for specific weeks of the year, but it does run special football-related promotions around the Super Bowl — and has historically been affiliated with pitchmen such as former NFL quarterback Joe Namath and coach Don Shula — to try to position its sofas and recliners as game-time necessities.
Football maniacs who have procured all the viewing, listening and reclining gear necessary typically find they need something to eat and drink while watching the game. Domino’s Pizza sales jump 30 percent on Super Bowl Sunday compared to a typical Sunday, said Tim McIntyre, vice president of communications at Domino’s Pizza. The company expects to deliver more than 1.2 million pizzas across the country on Sunday.
"We look forward to Super Bowl Sunday with great anticipation," McIntyre said via e-mail. "It is one of those days we circle on the calendar and prepare for."
Domino’s hires help in advance for game day, orders more food to meet the demand and stores will schedule everyone on the payroll to work that day, he explained. Domino’s also offers special game-day promotions: This year, the chain is selling any pizza of any size with any number of toppings for $10.99 on Super Bowl Sunday.
The day is such a seminal event for Domino’s that former delivery drivers often return to work that day just to partake in the Super Bowl rush, McIntyre said.
Like Domino’s, rival Papa John’s International also staffs up and buys extra ingredients to get ready. Super Bowl Sunday is often one of its top sales days of the year — along with Halloween and the day before Thanksgiving.
On average, Papa John’s will sell 50 percent more pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday than on a typical Sunday, said spokesman Chris Sternberg. That translates to 750,000 pizzas and more than 1 million chicken wings.
Review-Journal writer Benjamin Spillman contributed to this report.
