Amid the Super Bowl pregame activities in California this week, there's another team reacting to the stress: An American Heart Association mobile unit offering CPR training.
It's not a bad place to teach CPR. Super Bowl fans - whether at the stadium or watching at home — take the game so seriously that heart attacks and other cardiac events often spike in participating teams' home cities amid frenzied fandom and heavy eating and drinking, according to sports and health experts.
The CPR training is part of the NFL’s Super Bowl Experience festivities in San Francisco and isn't intended to suggest the big game has a direct correlation with heart attacks. An American Heart Association spokesperson told USA TODAY the education campaign was inspired by an on-field incident in January 2023, when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
But Super Bowl Sunday has been linked to circulatory deaths increasing by as much as 20%, according to a National Institutes of Health study.
"A Super Bowl with high drama/intensity can be associated with changes in cardiovascular death rates among a fan base with a strong attachment to the team even in the contemporary era," the report found. "An increase in death rates can be associated with a loss and a decrease in death rates can be associated with a win."
