Super Bowl Flush?

An urban legend states that sewage systems are strained every year during the Super Bowl, as fans simultaneously flush their toilets at half time.

It is just a myth.

The rumor states that millions of Super Bowl fans who are glued to the TV wait until the halftime break to use the restroom. This large number of simultaneous flushes strains the local water system to the point of collapse.

History

Rumors of simultaneous flushing dates back decades to popular radio shows, to I Love Lucy, to the finale of the popular TV series M*A*S*H in 1983. The rumor’s jump to the Super Bowl may have occurred when a water main did in fact break in Salt Lake City during the big game in 1984. That aging system, however, averaged 300 breaks a year, so the incident on Super Sunday was not particularly unusual.

Salt Lake City director of public utilities LeRoy W. Hooton, Jr. took a closer look at the rumor, and noted that slight variations of water pressure could be aligned with commercial breaks to ascertain a show’s popularity. In 1999, Hooton wrote that measured water pressure changes at the conclusion of the M*A*S*H* finale were more significant than during any Super Bowl. Hooton wrote:

We have one small pressure zone (Brinton Springs Tanner Low Zone) that is particularly sensitive to water flow and corresponding pressure dips. The last M*A*S*H episode of February 28, 1983 registered a total drop of 33 psi from 113 psi to 80 psi at the conclusion of the 2-1/2 hour special. The 5 commercial breaks caused pressure drops between 6 and 12 psi. To my knowledge 33 psi is the largest pressure drop resulting from a television show. The M*A*S*H story was covered by the local news, and was talked about for several years. The standing joke at the time was that instead of the Nielson Ratings, the water system pressure is a better way to measure viewer ratings. It was noted in a 1986 newspaper article that this same gauging station registered a maximum 15 psi drop during that year’s Super Bowl; not even close to the M*A*S*H reading. So, up to that year, the “Super Bowl flush” was still part of the legend.

Besides the fact that the 1984 Salt Lake City break is the only incident ever cited as coinciding with the Super Bowl, another point of contention mentioned by other writers over the years is that the Super Bowl has many commercial breaks prior to halftime. Thus, the assertion that most fans wait until halftime to use the restroom does not completely hold water – so to speak.

In 2012, the New York Post reported that after the New England Patriots lost Super Bowl XLVI to the New York Giants, toilet use rose 13 percent in New York. “The toilet-bowl shuffle — which came after tense hours of holding it in — was so strong that the 30-foot-deep water level in the Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers actually decreased by 2 inches after the contest,” the Post reported. That rise in toilet use occurred at the conclusion of the game, however, not halftime. A spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection also noted that several peaks in toilet use occurred during the game, such as the beginning and end of halftime, and at the conclusion of the game.

Bottom Line

The claim that sewage systems are pushed to the brink during the Super Bowl halftime due to a large number of flushes is a decades-old urban legend. There is some truth that a large number of flushes coincide with significant commercial breaks and the conclusion of the game, but none of these have been shown to strain any water or sewage system.