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There's just one game left on this year's football schedule -- that's the Super Bowl, which will be played Sunday night in Las Vegas and will feature Kansas City taking on San Francisco.
And while the Steelers have once again missed out on playing for the Lombardi Trophy, that doesn't mean fans in our region have become any less engaged in the sport.
In case you need anything to convince you of that, more evidence came out earlier this week when Pittsburgh again was named as the best city for football by WalletHub.
Our Tri-State Area finished ahead of some cities that also have a deep love for their teams -- Dallas was ranked second, Green Bay third, Los Angeles fourth and Boston fifth.
While each of those cities also finished in the top five in the pro football rankings, according to the Washington, D.C.-based personal financial website, what lifted Pittsburgh to the top overall spot is its No. 1 ranking in pro football cities and its No. 12 ranking for college football.
That should come as no surprise, either. When you look across the region, you'll find more than passing interest in Ohio State, Pitt, West Virginia University and Penn State football. The Tri-State Area is home to many graduates of each of those schools. Then, throw in the proximity to several Mid-America Conference teams at Ohio University, Kent State and Akron --and the number of graduates from those schools across the region -- and it's easy to see why there's a lot of interest in college football in our area.
Rounding out the top 10 are New York, Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco and Kansas City. Finishing at 11th overall was Cincinnati, which was 11th in the pro football rankings and 132nd in college football. In case you're wondering, Cleveland finished 25th overall, and was 23rd in the pro football rankings and 240th on the college football side.
Cincinnati did finish with the third-lowest average ticket price in the National Football League, behind Arizona and Buffalo.
On the college side, Michigan, Texas and Tennessee were tied for the highest minimum season ticket price.
In the NFL, Acrisure Stadium was rated as the fourth-most accessible stadium (behind Lambeau Field in Green Bay, High Mark Stadium in Buffalo and State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.) Finishing fifth was Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati.
Pittsburgh and Green Bay were tied for first when it comes to the most engaged fans in the NFL, while Penn State, Alabama and Clemson were tied for first in the college ranks, with WVU ranked fifth. Columbus was ranked 29th overall, while Morgantown was ranked 48th overall.
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Whether you are a football fan or not, it's likely your attention will be focused on Allegiant Stadium Sunday night.
It's likely just about everyone would like to see a Super Bowl game in person, but it's also just as likely that the ticket prices are a little bit out of reach for many of us. According to WalletHub, the average price of a game ticket on the resale market is $10,752, which represents a 93 percent increase over last year.
Still, WalletHub reports that 35 percent of us would give up drinking for one year for the opportunity to go to the game. Also, 28 percent of us would give up our favorite food and 21 percent would give back all of their vacation days from work.
While tickets might be a little out of reach, that doesn't mean we won't be enjoying the game. The numbers show that 16.2 million Americans plan to watch the game in a restaurant or bar, and 112.2 million people will throw or attend a Super Bowl party -- where the average number of calories will be 8,083.
The breakdown on food is interesting: There will be 1.45 billion chicken wings eaten along with 10 million pounds of ribs, 11.3 million pounds of potato chips and 250 million pounds of avocados purchased. Pizza orders will increase by 35 percent.
Our favorite Super Bowl foods are chips and dip (75 percent), chicken wings and pizza (tied at 59 percent), cookies and other desserts (56 percent), nachos (55 percent) and burgers and sliders (51 percent.)
Beverages are an important part of the mix, with 50 million cases of beer sold on Super Bowl Sunday, and 90 percent more beer consumed that day than on any other day of the year. By the end of the day, $1 billion will be spent on beer, $517 million will be spend on soft drinks and $226 million will be spent on whiskey.
With access to gambling being easier than ever before, 50 million adults are expected to wager $1.3 billion legally on the game. In fact, 34 percent of bettors say that the legalization of sports betting has made watching the games more entertaining.
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A couple of weeks ago, Casinos.com reported that the luckiest place to gamble in West Virginia was at Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack and Resort. Colm Phelan, the digital PR manager for the website that says it does reviews on everything casino, at the time said rankings for other states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, were not yet available.
Those numbers have been updated to include Pennsylvania, Phelan said in an e-mail last week, and a couple of area casinos have made that list.
Hollywood Casino at the Meadows in Washington, Pa., ranks fourth on the list, with a luck percentage of 25.7. Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh's North Shore was sixth with a luck percentage of 23.6. Parx Casino in Bensalem (a little bit north of Philadelphia) was the luckiest in the Keystone State, finishing with a luck percentage of 34.4.
Just some more numbers to chew on as you prepare to sit back and watch the game.
(Gallabrese, a resident of Steubenville, is executive editor of the Herald-Star and the Weirton Daily Times.)