Super Bowl TV viewership and US cigarette consumption moved in opposite directions from 2002 to 2015 with a -0.97 correlation, suggesting that for every additional million Americans who watched the Super Bowl, roughly proportional numbers of cigarettes went unsmoked. The most obvious theory — that the Super Bowl is so gripping that smokers forget to light up — fails to account for commercial breaks, which historically have been the most-watched portion of the broadcast. A simpler explanation exists, but it is considerably less interesting and does not involve Patrick Mahomes.
US cigarette consumption declined from around 400 billion cigarettes annually in 2002 to under 300 billion by 2015, driven by tax increases, smoking bans in public spaces, changing social norms, and sustained public health campaigns. Super Bowl viewership grew from roughly 86 million in 2002 to over 114 million by 2015, reflecting both population growth and the Super Bowl's consolidation as America's premier shared television event. Both trends move through the same years but are driven by entirely unrelated forces: one is a public health success story and the other is sports media economics. The inverse correlation is a numerical coincidence.
A public health trend and a sports media trend can march in opposite directions in perfect numerical harmony without knowing the other exists. Coincident trajectories are not conversations.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “US cigarette consumption” vs “Super Bowl TV viewership” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
