The Super Bowl Battle Between Boomers, Gen X & Millennials

Every year in February, millions of Americans pause for at least a Sunday amidst the year's shortest month to dedicate their time and emotion to the championship game of the National Football League. It is a day that, according to many, is the biggest unofficial American holiday, that 67% of US adults watch per Nielsen viewership data, with engagement levels going through the roof in recent years thanks to the rise of auxiliary activities, predominantly sports betting.

Even at its worst, the NFL’s final is still by far the most-watched program on American TV, netting a financial windfall for all involved, with its halftime show and a slew of ads morphing into an annually anticipated cultural phenomenon. The game is also a rollercoaster of emotion and supplies a decent quantity of mood changes throughout. What follows is an examination of the degrees of interest it piques in different demographics and adults and how the last match of the NFL playoffs specifically affects distinct groups of Americans.

TV Audience Data

On average, somewhere above one hundred million people watch the Super Bowl. The big game broke through the median one-hundred-million barrier in 2010, only dipping below it in 2021. Per various research, the Bowl has been dramatically losing viewers in the eighteen to forty-nine brackets in the past decade. Many analysts believe that the fracturing of the media is responsible for this. It has given younger audiences so many choices that the Bowl no longer gets viewed as attractive and necessary. In 2017, the TV ratings hit a twenty-five-year low in this demographic, snagging only 39.95 million people between the ages of eighteen and forty-nine.

That said, Millennials are still likely to view the NFL final more than any other age group, with 75% of its members saying they are likely to watch it, compared to 70% of Gen X-ers and 62% of Baby Boomers. Due to their availability to more disposable income and higher probability of spending money on entertainment-based activities, young adults also partake more in Bowl-related entertainment. As expected, even online betting has seen more participation from Millennials, who tend to claim more Super Bowl first deposit bonuses than any other generation.

Halftime Show Interest

As likely everyone knows, the Super Bowl halftime show traditionally gets almost as much press as the championship match itself, and on specific occasions, it has received more. In 1993, Michael Jackson’s mid-game performance drew more people to TV screens than Super Bowl XXVII. And the 2004 Janet Jackson - Justin Timberlake mishap generated a never-before-seen controversy that lasted for months.

Going by an analysis from Morning Consult, Generation Z members and Millennials are neck-and-neck regarding halftime show interest, with more than 70% of individuals comprising each of these age categories wanting to watch the mid-final entertainment. Depending on who is performing, these two groups’ interest levels vary. For some performers, one shows more engrossment and anticipation than the other. What is super interesting is that many young people nowadays like to wager on the halftime show. Some online research points out that Millennials tend to favor Bovada to place bets on how long performances will last and how many songs will comprise them. That was not even an option a decade ago.

Who Buys Tickets to the Game?

Most people who witness Super Bowls live have deeper pockets than the average American. Various surveys show that around 35% of attendees have a yearly house income above $100,000, and roughly 30% of those in the stands are between forty-five and sixty-five, which correlates to the national NFL TV viewing average. Usually, only 13%-15% of those in attendance are older than sixty-five or between twenty and thirty. So, Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers win this one.

Other fascinating bits of data concerning Super Bowl attendance is that around 28% of fans in the stands have a bachelor’s degree, with 19% holding graduate degrees and 25% having some college education. Of course, these figures are loads higher than the national averages. Also, somewhere in the neighborhood, 80% of ticket holders are people living outside the host state.

What Generation Cares About Ads the Most?

Every year, the cost of running a Super Bowl ad grows, with the price tag reaching a staggering $6.5 million for a 30-second spot now. Without question, commercials during the championship game have slowly become one of its main attractions for the TV-viewing public. But, who looks most forward to them?

Pulling data from Facebook’s Audience-Insight tool tells us that those between eighteen and twenty-four are the fans most looking forward to watching Bowl ads. A stat that will shock many is that 60% of women watching the game care about the ads shown during it, compared to 24% of men.




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