By Michelle Mueller
Over the previous weekend Americans gathered around their television sets and BBQ wings, eye locked on 120 yards of ‘specifically designed’ turf occupied by a surprisingly high number of macho men lined in padding more likely to cause greater injury than tangible protection. The annual Super Bowl consistently is the most watched television broadcast in the United States with viewership from this year’s event captured at 111 million.
With high engagement, comes the opportunity for high profit. Super Bowl 50 broadcasting was filled with 58 commercial advertisements (each of which estimated at $5 million dollars), while individual ticket prices were selling upwards of $5K with neighboring hotels seeing rates five to six times their season normal. It is projected that the Super Bowl generated at least $620 million in direct revenue, even though exact calculations are hard to measure. This does not include indirect revenue from publicity to artists like Coldplay or Beyonce, at home festivity investments (putting on a Super Bowl party is not free, to be frank), or the billions of dollars wagered on the outcome of the event alone. The estimated Super Bowl 50-related spending sits at $15 billion -- a number the National Football League would like to raise to $25 billion by 2027.
What could a sum like that do for major global crises, such as world hunger? The United Nations estimated back in 2008 that the cost to end world hunger is a $30 billion combined investment utilized for research and development. And only $3.2 billion a year (2015) for maintenance.
While this report is not intended to isolate or shame the American sports entertainment industry, it is rather a call for the revaluation of values directed at the consumer market.
Why does $33 billion (adjusted for 2015 inflation) invested to end a human problem seem insurmountable, while radical spending persists around a single day of entertainment, or infused with a $598 billion dollar defence budget? Why has this tragedy failed to gain priority? The fight against world hunger is not held liable to a single territorial power, but rather falls on the responsibility of humanity.
Chronic undernourishment affects 795 million people. 780 of which live in underdeveloped countries. Further, in a joint study conducted by McGill University and the University of Minnesota published in Nature found that the world already produces 1.5 times enough food to feed everyone on the planet. We have the resources to absolve this bleeding stain on our collective soul. However, the nature of capitalism and blind individualism not only obstructs the investment needed to set up distribution chains and infrastructure, but also stands in the way of them being successful.
Historically, attempts by governments to distribute food in equal shares have failed at the hands of corruption (black markets, mafias, etc.). Therefore, the need to increase farm yields at a micro level becomes all the more critical as economist Michael Lipton explains, “no country has achieved mass dollar poverty reduction without prior investment in agriculture.” This manifests in the form of communal farm plots arranged through large-scale infrastructural reform in areas most struck by poverty.
Feeding the world is not a single-swipe monetary exchange. And the complexity of this phenomenon likely contributes to the same communal indifference that allowed such inequality to be normalized with to begin with. As a society we can’t just give up one day of sports and expect not a single person to go to bed hungry that night. But the larger question I raise is, if you could-- would you?
What would you do if you knew as a species we had all the resources, monetary, technological, intellectual, to guarantee basic needs of food, water and shelter for current generations and beyond? Well countless academic studies conclude we do. And if we do, how has this monumental revelation not made it’s way to top of a budget approval, to the presidential debate stage or even somewhere within a three hour Super Bowl television special?
Responsibility for the basic needs for our human species should not be allocated to a single corporation or a single government; it should not be seen as an unattainable ideal or a burden to resourcing. Spending reflects values. Time reflects values. What do your habits say about yours?
Michelle Mueller is an Assistant Online Editor for the Sigma Iota Rho Journal of International Relations. She is senior at DePaul University majoring in International Studies.
