Game Day Food: If football and tennis can have special nibbles, why can't cricket?

The fact that apart from all the millions of burgers, corn dogs, poppers and chilli and nachos, a whopping 1.33 billion chicken wings were also estimated to have been consumed across the US just during the Superbowl match over the weekend, provides food for thought about this underplayed commercial angle to big game finals. Certain foods are bound to see a rise in sales when particular tournaments are on, though all sports spectaculars may not see quite as sharp a spike as chicken wings on a Superbowl Sunday in the US. Some 117 million hot dogs are chomped down just in stadiums during major league baseball games in the US, for instance, and 28,000 kg of strawberries doused in 7,000 litres of fresh cream are eaten by tennis fans converging on Wimbledon in London for that one fortnight every summer.

In India, barring the traditional seasonal face-off between the Mohan Bagan and East Bengal football teams that leads to a run on either prawns or hilsa in Kolkata markets depending on who wins, there are no other significant links between sporting events and food here. Yet. Considering major cricket fixtures in India draw crowds at stadiums and TV audiences that probably surpass Superbowl viewership numbers, the advantages of subtly seeding the idea of ‘game day foods’ in Indian sports fans minds should be evident to marketers.