These numbers for food consumed at the All-Star Game are impossible

Cafe Society
1

(Mods - this involves food, sports, and math. I’m trying it here in Cafe Society, but move it elsewhere if more appropriate)

NBC has an article that quotes some of the mass quantities of food expected to be sold at the All-Star Game and the Home Run Derby this year.

The article is here, and here are the key figures:

Popcorn – 1,026,000 lbs
Soda – 301,000 gallons
Hot Dogs – 263,000 lbs
Sausage/Brats – 77,000 lbs
Pretzels – 124,200 lbs
Peanuts – 153,300 lbs
Mustard – 2415 gallons
Ketchup – 8700 gallons

Without going further, obviously that’s a lot of food. But, the capacity of Great American Ball Park is 42,319. Let’s be generous and up the attendance figures to 50,000 people each day. That means the per person food amounts of the 100,000 people break down as follows:

Popcorn – 10.26 lbs/person
Soda – 3.01 gallons
Hot Dogs – 2.63 lbs
Sausage/Brats – .77 lbs
Pretzels – 1.24 lbs
Peanuts – 1.53 lbs.
Mustard – 3.09 ounces
Ketchup – 11.14 ounces

One of the reasons I’m posting this is because I have a friend that just lost a trivia tiebreaker based on the soda sales numbers above. If a soda cup is 44 ounces, those numbers only work if every patron averaged 9 of those cups. Obviously the 10 pounds of popcorn are ludicrous; the hot dog numbers, even with footlongs, come out to 10 hotdogs per person. And all covered with a half-bottle of ketchup.

I know Americans are obese, but was the All-Star Game attended by the Huttese race?

2

The craziest number to me is the Ketchup. I would expect 90% of the attendance to be elementary aged kids.

3

I agree it sounds like a lot, but I would note that they say “sold” not “consumed”. I know when we go to events like this, I actually buy a shit ton more food for the kids who are with me, than they actually eat. And when we buy those big ass bags of popcorn, the majority of it goes home with us. There is a ton of food waste.

4

Even allowing for popcorn sales, which could arguably be taken home for later consumption, that still doesn’t account for things like 2.6 lbs of hot dogs (what is that like 16 hot dogs per man, woman and child?) - an item which is almost certainly consumed on premises.

No, them there numbers is cooked.

5

Even with food wasted, the numbers are still way too high. There are definitely some people who buy too much food and waste it, but there are also people who eat before the game because they don’t want stadium food.

Either the numbers are wrong, or they include all that’s ordered for the All-Star Game, and some of that ordered will be left over and used for the games afterwards, or there are more events around the Game where food sales are made, or they are misleading in some other way.

6

Well, it’s an open secret that crowd numbers (like for a parade) are usually just pulled out of someone’s ass, and often wildly inflated. Mayby it was these same guys who “estimated” the food consumption numbers? :slight_smile:

7

Well, it is “expected to be sold.” Expectations were wildly over-rated! :slight_smile:

Could also be that the person giving the stats only gave the stats for “stuff we ordered to be delivered by Sunday” meaning it includes food they were stocking for the week, which included a 3-game home series against the Cleveland Indians. No doubt they expected big crowds for that - they had just under 40k each night.

8

I think it’s a combination of what ZipperJJ said and an idiot reporter trying to create a story.