Our report covers the week and day of the Super Bowl from 2020 to 2025 to uncover the impact of the Super Bowl on retail in terms of foot traffic visits. Our data shows that the Super Bowl generally has a negative impact on retail visit performance, though 2025 has seen a modest improvement for some retail categories.
Certain retail categories such as cosmetics, liquor, and sporting goods can outperform the average but most retailers won’t see a positive impact from the Super Bowl.
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Jump to:
- Key takeaways
- Super Bowl 2025 in New Orleans
- Performance during Super Bowl Sunday
- Performance during the week of the Super Bowl
- Retail category analysis
- Methodology
- Next steps
Key Takeaways
- Compared to the average number of visits on similar Sundays, the Super Bowl day ranks worst across all retail categories.
- 2025 saw a modest improvement for retailers on the day of the Super Bowl. Only one retail category, children’s stores, saw a drop in visits of over 20% compared to the average.
- The week of the Super Bowl in 2025 for retailers meant a dip of 5.71% below average. This is on par with some previous years – it is less than a 1% increase compared to 2024.
- New Orleans bucked the trend—while Super Bowl Sunday usually hurts retail, the city saw strong YoY growth in QSR, grocery, and liquor stores, proving that location matters when it comes to game-day spending.
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Super Bowl 2025 in New Orleans
While the Super Bowl typically negatively impacts retail performance, New Orleans—one of America’s most vibrant hospitality and food scenes—saw strong foot traffic growth in key categories.
Top Performing Categories in New Orleans:
• Shoe Stores +54.4% YoY – Likely fueled by sports fans grabbing last-minute kicks for game-day style.
• Jewelry, Luggage, and Leather Goods Stores +46.9% YoY – Perfect for those celebrating the big weekend with luxury purchases.
• Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) +40.2% YoY – No surprise here—New Orleans’ legendary bar scene thrived with fans pouring in.
• Grocery Stores +30.1% YoY – Game-day snacks and tailgating essentials drove traffic.
• Restaurants & Other Eating Places +28.7% YoY – QSR locations saw a significant boost, particularly in areas surrounding stadiums and fan zones.
QSR & Hospitality: The Real MVPs of the Super Bowl
Unlike traditional retail, restaurants, bars, and fast food chains in New Orleans capitalized on the massive influx of football fans. Traveler accommodations (+32.1% YoY) also benefited, reinforcing the impact of large-scale sporting events on local hospitality businesses.
Retail Performance For the Rest Of the Country
The Super Bowl is generally bad for retail visit performance for the rest of the country as many consumers may choose to stay at home or go out to watch the game. Our data shows it is not uncommon for retailers to see a drop of over 10% in visits compared to average.
But 2025 showed a modest increase on 2024. Only one retail type, children’s stores, saw a drop of over 20% in visits compared to the average on the day of the Super Bowl.
In 2025, retailers saw an increase in visits of 11.47% compared to 2024. But 2025 visits are over 8% lower than 2020.
Consistently, retail categories such as cosmetics, liquor, and sporting goods can maintain or outperform the average number of visits. But, for most retailers, Super Bowl Sunday can be a struggle.
Retail Performance During the Week of the Super Bowl
The week of the Super Bowl in 2025 for retailers meant a dip of 5.71% below average. This is on par with some previous years – it is less than a 1% increase compared to 2024.
While some retailers struggled to achieve average visits, some saw a better than average performance.
The stand out players for the Super Bowl week of 2025 are:
- Liquor stores: 4.99% above average
- Sporting goods: 4.4% above average
- Electronics: 1.59% above average
The retail categories that struggled the most to maintain average visits are:
- Children’s stores: 22.83% below average
- Office supply stores: 17.41% below average
- Furniture stores: 16.15% below average
- Men’s clothing stores: 11.22% below average
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Retail Category Struggles and Standouts During the Super Bowl
The only categories that showed similar performance to average were liquor stores, household stores, and electronic stores, but this was only seen on some years.
Liquor
Liquor stores are one of the few retail categories that have seen a consistent performance to average on Super Bowl Sunday. In 2025, liquor store visits were less than 1% below average and visits were up 4.04% compared to the previous Super Bowl.
However, other Sundays see a greater number of visits. In particular, the Sundays following the Super Bowl had a higher average number of visitors. The average number of visits to liquor after the Super Bowl in 2024 increased by 13.9%.
The only time visits to liquor stores on Super Bowl Sundays dipped remarkably below average was in 2021, during the pandemic. The 2021 Super Bowl saw a dramatic drop in visits of over 30% below average. These visit numbers have now certainly recovered.
While the liquor stores perform consistently well on Super Bowl Sunday, it is by no means a great pull of foot traffic to these stores.
Sporting Goods
Of the six Super Bowls from 2020 to 2025, only 2025 has seen average performance on the day of the Super Bowl. However, the week surrounding the Super Bowl is more consistent with three of the six being above average.
In 2020, visits to sporting good stores were more than 6% above average during the week of the Super Bowl. Only 2025 with 4.4% visits above average comes close, perhaps showing many consumers ready to buy jerseys and other goods for the big game.
Sporting Goods are one of the few retailers to outperform average number of visits in 2025 on the day and week of the Super Bowl.
Shoe Stores
Shoes stores saw a 21.7% increase in visits on the day of the Super Bowl in 2025 compared to 2024. However, shoe retailers may hesitate to give credit to the Super Bowl as these stores have been seeing a consistent increase in visits on other Sundays too and the Super Bowl is typically a poor to average day for shoe stores.
The day of the Super Bowl often means lower visits than usual for retailers and shoe stores are no exception. The average number of visits to shoe stores dropped by 2.5% on Super Bowl Sunday compared to the previous week.
During the week of the Super Bowl, shore stores saw a drop in visits of 6.86% below average. By no means is this the biggest drop in our report and it is a great improvement for shore stores compared to 2024, where shore stores suffered visits 12% below average.
Of the past six Super Bowls, only half have seen shoe stores see visits close to average and none above average. Of the week of the Super Bowl, only 2020 and 2022 have seen visits above average.
Children’s Stores
Out of all retail categories, children’s stores struggled the most in 2025 to maintain visit numbers. During the week of the Super Bowl, these stores saw a drop of 22.83% compared to the average. During the day of the Super Bowl, visits were 22.29% below average.
The Super Bowl has rarely been a huge day for children’s stores. However, the day of the Super Bowl in 2020 did see an increase of over 13% compared to the average. Multiple factors, such as the pandemic for some years and the fact that the Super Bowl takes place outside of the seasonal demand for back to school goods, makes visits to children’s stores naturally lower than other categories.
2025, however, seems to have been a particular struggle for children’s stores as the average number of visits during the Super Bowl week were more than 7% lower compared to 2024.
Methodology & Data Sources
This analysis draws from advanced in-store sensor data and over 15 unique datasets, providing a near-real-time window into shopper behavior across the United States. Foot traffic trends are analyzed year-over-year, offering an objective measure of how consumer patterns shift over time.
Next Steps for Retailers
Considering the analysis, it’s clear that retail performance during Super Bowl 2025 remains tricky to navigate. Ultimately, while Super Bowl Sunday poses challenges, with the right strategies, retailers can innovate and find new avenues of success, turning viewer enthusiasm into valuable consumer relationships.
With the right data, retailers can tackle the challenges the Super Bowl brings. This can be done through analysis of the customer journey and detailed store performance insights. See our solutions for retailers to improve performance.
