Here’s What We Can Learn From Fans Scattering Ashes at the Super Bowl

Cremation Funeral Industry News February 18, 2018
Ashes Scattering | Connecting Directors
Justin Crowe

Justin Crowe is the Founder and CEO at Parting Stone offering families a complete alternative to cremated remains that can be touched and held - no more “ash.” He is passionate about empowering families in their grief through meaningful experiences. Justin is co-host of the Deathcare Decoded podcast available here.


Here’s What We Can Learn From Fans Scattering Ashes at the Super Bowl

During last week’s celebration festivities for the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl win, we noticed a trend emerging on social media. Fans were scattering ashes at the super bowl events like the big game and the celebration parade.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a fan named Dustin Slaughter who brought his father’s ashes to the Eagles Super Bowl parade. The Philadelphia native commented:

“It feels good to have him with me for a day like today.”

Anther fan at the parade who traveled from Florida posted a video to Twitter showing him scattering his grandfather’s remains on-route. There were at least five other documented instances of memorializing passed lived ones at the Eagles’s events.

This surprisingly common practice of memorializing at the Super Bowl is evidence of our progressing comfort with cremated remains, the desire for ritual, and the increasingly personalized methods of memorialization that we seek out.

The remembrance ritual trends witnessed at the Super Bowl events expose an accessible opportunity for funeral homes. Funeral Homes are uniquely qualified to facilitate activities like celebrating the big win with cremated loved ones, hosting a ritual scattering to commemorate die-hard sports fans who didn’t live to see the big victory, or organizing other highly personalized rituals that happen to occur in numbers during shared-experience events.

Hosting these types of community support activities can be invaluable marketing strategies forming camaraderie with locals, building trust, and becoming apart of a memorable story for each person involved. Bringing organization to the randomized rituals that we witnessed last week is a heartfelt gesture and perfect content for social media marketing and press coverage. The Eagles ashes scattering was covered by The New York Post, Pennlive.com, Thescore.com, Dailymail.co.uk, Fox43.com, and a dozens more media outlets.

Have you organized a memorial around a regional event? Tell us about it in the comments!