If you’ve spent March Madnessglued to your couch and ordered food for delivery more than you’d like to admit, you’re not alone. During game days when Villanova won this year, Grubhub noticed a significant spike in orders like fried rice, sweet potato sushi rolls, and cheese fries in the Philadelphia area. With the NCAA’s Sweet 16 due to begin today, expect a similar trend in dessert orders.
Grubhub crunched the numbers on dessert orders in the period leading up to last year’s Sweet 16 and saw a significant spike in them. Blame it on subliminal messaging or mere game-time enthusiasm, but there’s a definite rise in couch-ridden sweet tooths during the peak of college basketball season.
Here are the 16 most commonly ordered desserts online during the Sweet 16, ranked by the percentage increase in orders:
16) Apple pie
7.6 percent more common
15) Carrot cake
9.7 percent more common
14) Brownie
12.6 percent more common
13) Mochi ice cream
14.2 percent more common
12) Baklava
19.3 percent more common
11) Chocolate chip cookies
25.3 percent more common
10) New York cheesecakes
30 percent more common
9) Tiramisu
31 percent more common
8) Cannoli
33.6 percent more common
7) Just plain old cheesecakes (for people who hate NYC)
43.9 percent more common
6) Banana pudding
44.1 percent more common
5) Flan
45.8 percent more common
4) Strawberry cheesecakes
49 percent more common
3) Chocolate cakes
52.7 percent more common
2) Zeppole
55.5 percent more common
And the winner of the Sweet 16 is the all-American…
1) Churros
78.8 percent more commonly found in orders during the Sweet 16 than any other day of the year. Wow, how we Americans love our culturally appropriated desserts during national sporting events.
Photo via Christina McKenzie/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
