The chicken sandwich may have won the hearts and stomachs of US consumers in 2019, but the chicken wing will still reign supreme during upcoming Super Bowl 2020 weekend party events, which culminates with the NFL championship football game in Miami on February 2. The Washington, DC-based National Chicken Council (NCC), which released its annual Chicken Wing Report on January 23, projects that Americans will consume a record-breaking 1.4 billion wings during Super Bowl LIV weekend.
This year’s wing consumption estimate is a two percent increase over 2019, meaning Americans will eat 27 million more wings during the big game weekend that they did last year. To put that in perspective, if Kansas City Chiefs’ Coach Andy Reid ate three wings per minute, it would take him about 900 years to consume 1.4 billion wings.
More Ways to Visualize 1.4 Billion Chicken Wings
- Every player in the NFL, including the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, would have to consume 825,000 wings each to reach 1.4 billion
- 175 million pounds of wings weighs 1,500 times as much as the entire 49ers team and three of their team buses
- 1.4 billion wings could circle the circumference of the Earth 3 times
- 1.4 billion wings are enough to give every attendee of every Super Bowl since 1967 each 342 wings
- 1.4 billion wings laid end to end would stretch the entire Florida coastline, home of Super Bowl LIV, more than nine times
- If each of the 1.4 billion wings were counted as one second, they would equal about 45 years
To get a better idea of just how much Americans love their chicken wings, the NCC asked wing-eaters from around the nation to talk about how they “wing it.” It turns out roughly two thirds of those polled (65%) who eat chicken wings claim they like to do so while watching a major sporting event like the Super Bowl. Half (51%) claim that they believe chicken wings should be the official food of the Super Bowl.
“Football is great. Wings are great. But they’re even better together,” said Council spokesman Tom Super. “Sure, you can have your chips, your guacamole, your pizza. But when it comes to Super Bowl menus, wings rule the roost. So grab a wet nap, dive in and help put a dent in that 1.4 billion.”
On behalf of the National Chicken Council, Ketchum Analytics conducted the “US Chicken Wing Consumption & Behavior Study” to better understand perceptions of chicken wing consumers. It was fielded online by LUCID with a 95% confidence level and a margin of error of +/-2.5% and ran from January 16 to January 21, 2020. The study was derived from a sample of 1,000 adults in the United States who stated they eat chicken wings.
