“These are moments in your life you remember,’’ he said. “I don’t want to screw it up.’’
The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association predicts that 36 million people will throw Super Bowl parties this Sunday. A survey by Visa found that hosts plan to spend $118.80 on food, drinks, and related items.
Super Bowl Sunday - it has its own day of the week, in the way other sports championships do not - has become such a national bacchanal that almost 6 million Americans may go to work late or not at all the next day, according to a 2008 Harris Interactive poll. There are even calls to make “Super Bowl Monday’’ a federal holiday.
But as large as they are, the statistics barely hint at the psychological importance of the day, supercharged in Greater Boston this year with the Patriots not just in the Super Bowl but playing the Giants, the team that robbed them of the NFL title and an undefeated season in their 2008 matchup.
Technically the players are the ones under pressure to win on Sunday. But as Frank Shorr, director of the Sports Institute at Boston University, points out, the day also represents the “culmination of months of work for fans. People are emotionally invested.’’
Ken Spalasso, president of SuperSundayhq.com, a website that previews and reviews parties in the Super Bowl host city, goes one step further. “I think of parties as your own personal Super Bowl,’’ he said, adding that social media has upped the pressure to experience the ultimate Super Bowl Sunday, or at least seem like you are. “You get one shot at soaking up the experience.’’
That’s why Dedric Polite, 30, an account executive at HubSpot, a Cambridge marketing software company, cast a worldwide net in his hunt for the best party. “Wondering who’s throwing the biggest/baddest Super Bowl party in Boston this year?’’ he tweeted.
