This heat map from Square shows how local commerce exploded around the Super Bowl
American football’s Super Bowl, like all major athletic events, is traditionally a huge boon for the city that hosts it. Analysts estimated that this year’s game, held this past Sunday in New Orleans, Louisiana, would bring $185 million to the city, which is still recovering from the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The jury is out on exactly how much money the event brought to the city as a whole. But Square, the mobile payment system that allows vendors to accept credit cards through their smartphones and tablets, has given Quartz some stats and a couple of maps showing how the game boosted sales carried out with their software:
Sales involving Square increased from roughly $500,000 in the weekend before the Super Bowl (including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) to about $800,000 the weekend of.
More than 1,000 vendors use Square in New Orleans. Many, such as food trucks, merchants at outdoor markets, and taxicab drivers, used to be cash-only operations, according to the company.
Party planners, DJs, music groups, and others in the entertainment industry collected more than eight times as much revenue during Super Bowl weekend than they did the weekend prior.
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