Free Imponderables: Fun and Games by David Feldman Page A

chain crew, when it runs onto the field, doesn’t have to find the exact spot near the 23-yard line where the ball was originally spotted, but merely the 25-yard line. The clip “finds” the spot near the 23-yard line.
     
    Submitted by Dennis Stucky of San Diego, California.

WHY HAVE MANY MOVIE THEATERS STOPPED POPPING THEIR OWN POPCORN?
     
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    T he popcorn business in the United States ain’t peanuts. Americans, the largest per capita consumers in the world, eat over 10 billion quarts of popcorn annually, thus generating over $1 billion for the popcorn industry.
    About 70 percent of all popcorn is consumed in the home and approximately 30 percent is bought in theaters, carnivals, amusement parks, stadiums, etc. But over 75 percent of the revenue from sales comes from popcorn bought outside of the home. About $250 million, or around one-quarter of all popcorn sales, is delivered by movie theater concession sales.
    To understand how crucial popcorn sales are to the movie industry, consider the economic facts of life for the movie theater exhibitor. Each owner tabulates his “nut,” the total fixed costs and overhead needed to keep the theater open. In a large city, with a medium-sized house in a nice district, that nut might be about $12,000 a week. Let us assume that this theater, the Rialto, shows first-run movies and has booked the latest James Bond thriller for the Christmas season. The owner has committed the theater to this picture many months in advance. Often, because distributors want to place their movies in houses that can run them for a long time, he might be forced to stick with an already faded movie in his theater until James Bond comes to the rescue. If Friday the Thirteenth Part Thirteen is grossing only $8000 a week, the owner must eat the $4000 difference between his nut and his gross.
    Even James Bond does not guarantee the exhibitor endless riches, for the film distributor wants his piece of the 007 action. And it is a rather large piece. The exhibitor does not pay cash for the right to run a movie; he gives the distributor a percentage of his gross, after the nut is deducted. In the case of most first-run movies, exhibitors must pay the distributor 90 percent of the net. If James Bond grosses $62,000 the first week, a superb showing, the exhibitor deducts the $12,000 nut from the gross (leaving $50,000), keeps a measly 10 percent, or $5000, for himself, and then sends the rest of the money to the film’s distributor (usually, but not always, the company that produced the movie). By the fifth week of James Bond’s run, the theater might be lucky to clear $1000 a week from the ticket receipts.
    But do not cry for the theater owner. He has a secret weapon: the concession stand. Popcorn. Soft drinks. Candy. The movies may pay the bills, but the concession stands send the family to Florida in the winter.
    Let’s look at how concession sales affect the bottom line of the Rialto. In large cities, about 15–20 percent of all customers will stop at the concession stand (in smaller towns, even more customers eat), and the theater owner figures to gross about $1.25 for every customer who walks through the turnstile, meaning that the average purchase is over $5. The key to making money in the concession area is maintaining a high profit margin, and the items sold do a terrific job. The average profit margin on candy—77 percent; on popcorn—86 percent; on soft drinks—a whopping 90 percent. For every dollar spent at the concession counter, the theater operator nets over 85 cents.
    This is the theater’s average cost for a large bucket of “buttered” popcorn that might retail for two to three dollars:
     
    Popcorn—8 cents
Butter Substitute—4 cents
Bucket—30 cents
     
    Yes, the bucket itself is the most expensive component of your popcorn purchase. Even if the Rialto were to use “real” butter, which most consumers can’t distinguish from imitation, it would only add five more