The most shared part NFL football fans have with one another is their culture of food. Fans gorge themselves on hotdogs, pizza, Buffalo wings, and beer - a new era of football
."The foods [that people eat while watching football] are not inherently bad, but as the NFL has turn out to be a formidable business, the forces of volume, scale, mass sponsorship, and advertisement have made the foods more industrialized, processed, fried, deep-fried, frozen, and designed to be eaten while drinking copious amounts of soft drinks or beer," says New York- and Sonoma-based food and restaurant consultant Clark Wolf.
With only eight home games each year, NFL team owners want to make the most food and beverage revenue from their fan base, and some have the appetite to charge more than others-just because they can.
The Cleveland Browns sold the most luxurious hot dog in 2013 at $6 each, while Zygi Wilf, major owner of the Minnesota Vikings, sold his hot dogs for $3.
"The NFL owners and advertisers would rather people die of obesity, and get themselves every last dollar, than improve the lives of fans by giving them not only great entertainment, but good food," says Wolf. "The irony is actually quite funny. Corporations want to serve their guests really good food in the box seats, but in order to serve good food, it's catering."
"As the NFL realizes that concussions put their players in danger, the fans need to realize that the food's doing it, too," says Wolf.
Consider as that one solo restaurant-styled Buffalo wing has about 72 calories, and one tablespoon of ranch dressing has about 70 calories. Seven wings and one tablespoon of ranch down the palate and into the stomach is about 570 calories, and the 1,974 mg of sodium from the Buffalo Wild Wings Southwest Dippers will get more than a day's worth of sodium (1,500 mg) suggested by the American Heart Association.
"Football and spectator sports are on the road to better food. More young people are going into the food business and the people selling the bad food are old farts-old corporate hacks. There are millennial making good food and street food that is very good," he says.
