The Super Bowl gets bigger – and retailers respond with tech
The Super Bowl has become a major U.S. holiday that transcends the sport of football, and retailers are increasingly using technology to capture related spending.
In 2025, I wrote a column about how the Super Bowl is evolving into a mainstream consumer celebration, following in the tracks of Halloween by becoming a major annual spending event.
According to LendingTree’s 2026 Super Bowl Spending Report, 80% of Americans said they planned to watch the Super Bowl this year, up from 75% last year. However, those viewers expected to spend an average of $129 on related purchases such as food & beverage, apparel and betting down from $142 last year.
This still puts the Super Bowl ahead of the record-high $114.45 the National Retail Federation’s annual consumer survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics estimated shoppers would spend on Halloween in 2025, cementing its place in the retail holiday calendar.
Not surprisingly, retailers are responding to the emergence of this new “super” holiday with some high-tech solutions and strategies. Let’s look at a few from just-passed Super Bowl XL, where the New England Patriots made their record-breaking 12th appearance (yes, I know the Seattle Seahawks won):
Yes, in my back yard
This year’s Super Bowl took place in the San Francisco Bay area. Local retailers responded with the opposite of the attitude known as "NIMBY" (not in my back yard), where residents fight to keep events or changes out of their area.
One retailer that said "Yes, in my back yard" was eBay. The online giant offered an immersive livestream pop-up event in its headquarters city of San Jose the day of the game, as well as an eBay End Zone in San Francisco’s Union Square featuring collectibles and authenticated pre-owned fashion and the eBay Live Big Game livestream selling hub, which included items sold directly from the End Sone.
[READ MORE: eBay hosting omnichannel Super Bowl celebration]
And San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. activated a series of fan-first experiences, dubbed Home Turf, across the Bay Area ahead of the Super Bowl (which took place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.).
The centerpiece of the Home Turf series was a multi-day pop-up at 1 Montgomery in San Francisco’s financial district, produced in partnership with San Francisco-based record label Empire. The event featured apparel customization opportunities including embroidered patches and specialty lace locks as well as live Tiny Desk musical performances, marking the first time the online concert series recreated its set outside of NPR’s headquarters.
Let’s hear it for AI and influencers
Adobe Analytics data on a variety of consumer shopping and spending metrics for Super Bowl Sunday shows that AI referral visit share on game day was 425% higher than in 2025. During the week leading up to the Super Bowl, AI referral visit increased by 430% year over year, while AI-driven visit share rose by 162% compared to a typical Sunday.
Although these figures fell short of Adobe’s pregame predictions, they still show a massive increase in consumer use of AI to shop for Super Bowl items, almost certainly driven in part by the significant uptick in retailers offering AI shopping bots and customer experiences within leading AI models.
Unlike AI, social revenue share exceeded Adobe’s expectations, rising 20% year over year on Super Bowl Sunday to 4.8% from 4%, better than the predicted 15.9% year over year growth and indicating strong results from Super Bowl-related social influencer campaigns.
Revenue from social was up 29.1% year over year in the week ahead of Super Bowl Sunday 2026, slightly beating a forecast of 28.91% year over year growth for the week. Affiliates and partners revenue share was also up a healthy 21.8% from the same period in 2025.
Bundle up
Finally, retailers continued a successful trend from 2025 of offering discount holiday bundles similar to the ones they have been providing for traditional occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas for the past five to 10 years.
Typically, these bundles are available to purchase online for home delivery or in-store pickup, and in some cases can also be purchased by in-store shoppers. A perfect example from the 2026 Super Bowl is a joint offer from Aldi and Uber Eats on a new promotional Super Bowl delivery offer.
The Aldi SOS "Save Our Spreads" Big Game Bundle offered a curated selection of snacks, dips and appetizers with a 30% discount on carts totaling $60 or more. Customers could redeem the offer via the Aldi storefront on the Uber Eats app.
