March (pizza) Madness
What is it about sporting events and pizza? Ride along with delivery person Tina Lance.
from the April 7, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
Yet pizza is hardly an American food. According to Ms. Olver and others, forerunners of the food date back at least to third-century Macedonia and probably to the Stone Age campfires of Neolithic tribes. Takeout would have to await the invention of the wheel, and the pizza we know today required the introduction of the tomato.
Olver credits Spanish and Portuguese explorers who journeyed to Mesoamerica in the 17th century for combining New World ingredients – notably, the tomato – with Old World traditions to create something that would be recognizable as a pizza today. (The tomato, incidentally, is a fruit, but it was classified as a vegetable by no less of an eminence than the US Supreme Court in 1893 in order to protect domestic growers.)
Pizza caught on in the United States after World War II, when soldiers returned from Europe with an appetite for it. Today more than 60,000 establishments make the doughy discs.
"Durable," is how Peter Dunay, financial analyst for Meridian Equity Partners describes it. So what if that term could be used to describe off-road vehicles. "You can heat a slice up five hours later," he says. "You don't want to do that with a hot dog or a hamburger."
"It's the ultimate couch potato food," adds Olver.
Which brings us to the NCAA basketball tournament. This, too, has swelled in popularity in recent decades. For the final game alone tonight – between Kansas and Memphis – some 40 million people are expected to tune in. Three million others have watched the tournament online – double the number from last year. Perhaps most telling, the cost of a TV ad for the final game is now the highest of any event other than the Super Bowl.
Oh, how times have changed. When the games were first staged in 1939, the event lost money. Today, both "Final Four" and "March Madness" are trademarked terms. TV ad revenues for the tournament will top $550 million.
Not surprisingly, the sponsors buying these commercials are some of the biggest names in American capitalism, such as Coca-Cola and Chrysler. But don't forget the pizzamakers. Papa John's is the official "delivery" pizza of the NCAA games, which may make its pies sound like a UPS product but also, presumably, makes the company a lot of money. In the last three days of the tournament, Papa John's was expected to sell 50,000 additional pizzas.
This year the firm created a website especially for March Madness (papaspanfan.com), where people can order pizza online – 20% of their business now comes through the Internet. Fans can also submit photos they shot of the games, which may be posted on the site. Photos are chosen by a "celebrity" panel that includes the company's mascot, Mr. Slice.
Wanting to get in the spirit of the tournament, I requested an interview with Mr. Slice. In the e-mail declining my request, I was told he is a character that doesn't speak. The company was, however, able to capture some "quotes" from him, including the text number for ordering pizza.
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