TV sales see spike as Super Bowl nears
Posted January 28, 2016 7:09 p.m. EST
Plenty of people watching the big game at home want to watch it on a big screen. Seventy inches, 82 inches – it seems like the bigger the better.
The Super Bowl inspires many new TV purchases every year, and with the Carolina Panthers in the game, more people in North Carolina are in the market this year.
"It's very critical (to have the right TV),” said Dwight Johnson, who was shopping for a new screen at a Raleigh Best Buy on Thursday. “You want to see every point and every play, and you want to see that football sail through the air when the Carolina Panthers make a touchdown."
With the Super Bowl three time zones away on the west coast and game packages starting in the thousands of dollars, “the next best thing is a big TV on my wall and watching it with my friends," Johnson added.
The last time the Panthers played in the Super Bowl -- in 2004 -- the craze was HD TV.
"It seems like it takes an important event like this for people finally open their wallet," said John Bachman back in 2004 while buying an HD TV for the Super Bowl.
But now HD TV is old hat. This year, ultra-high definition, 4K TV's -- with four times the resolution of regular HD TV's -- are getting fans all wide-eyed.
"We are selling a ton of 4K televisions," said Best Buy sales manager Frank Matthews. “It's all about the experience on TV."
Some stores, like Best Buy, are even offering Super Bowl package deals to really rev up the party. With one such deal, you can get you three recliner chairs, well cushioned; a 65-inch flat-screen TV and a sound deck all for a cool $10,000.
“I think if they (the Panthers) wouldn’t have made it, I probably would have waited a while,” Johnson said. “You always wait for the next best TV to come out, but there’s no time like the present.”
