As the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles prepare to square off for the Lombardi Trophy, Americans will be preparing for their battle at the snack table. According to the National Chicken Council, or NCC, fans are projected to eat a record-breaking 1.47 billion chicken wings during the big game. That’s a 1.5% increase over last year’s Super Bowl, or an extra 20 million wings consumed coast to coast.
While Kansas City might have its barbeque, and Philadelphia certainly can boast its cheesesteak, no comestible carries more cultural relevancy with the day than a simple chicken wing. Tom Super, a National Chicken Council spokeshack, said of this cultural anomaly, “Matthew McConaughey was correct: Football is for eating.” “There will be pizza, yes, guacamole, chips, and dips galore, but for Super Bowl, the star is the chicken wing. However, this year, we predict an uptick in chicken cheeseburgers.”
Loyal to their rituals of chicken wings on game-day football, orders for chicken wings have just proved that. Super even speculated that if the Bills from Buffalo, the birthplace of chicken wings, had made it to the championship, demands could have been even higher: “If Buffalo and its Bills can take the next step and return to the Big Game, we would expect an even bigger increase in wings and wipes.”
But what does 1.47 billion wings look like? To put it into perspective:
- If every NFL player ate 50 wings a day and somehow lived forever, it would take them collectively 720 years to finish them all.
- Lined up end-to-end, 1.47 billion wings would stretch from GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City to Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia approximately 63 times.
- Stacked together, these wings could orbit the Earth more than three times.
- Every person in the United States—man, woman, and child—could receive over four wings each.
A Super Bowl sales surge
One can be certain that chicken wings aren’t only a game-day favorite but also a powerhouse in grocery aisles: Wing sales heading into Super Bowl LVIII have taken flight, especially in the home markets of the competing teams, according to the NCC.
Kansas City Chiefs fans loved their wings, as evidenced by the remarkable 21.9% increase in sales in the four weeks leading up to January 19, 2025. The Philadelphia Eagles fans were not too far behind, with a wing purchase increase of 19% as they got ready to cheer on. Nationwide, U.S. wing sales saw a 12% uptick during the playoff period, proving that whether or not their team made it to the finals, fans were still committed to their traditional Super Bowl fare.
But growth was even higher in playoff markets, where the fanbase tends to be most invested, significantly outperforming the national average. Sales of wings jumped 15.5% in playoff markets during this period from a year ago, further underpinning the nexus between football and food.
Read now: Trump signals support for mass displacement in Gaza: Latest developments and global reactions.
The National Chicken Council, which represents companies that produce and process more than 95 percent of the chicken eaten in the United States, helped keep tabs on these trends since chicken wings remain one of the top game-day foods. And even though this year’s Super Bowl LVIII is expected to be a nail-biter, one thing’s for sure: wings will be front and center at parties coast to coast.
So, as millions of Americans gather around their TVs on game day, whether they’re rooting for the Chiefs or the Eagles, they’ll likely be doing so with a plate of wings in hand. Football may be the headliner, but for many, the real MVP of Super Bowl Sunday is the humble chicken wing.
Read now: Goodbye to the Federal Government – Thousands take Trump’s offer despite confusion.
