• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, February 1, 2007

It looks like people who didn't pounce on big-screen TV deals over the holidays are splurging for the Super Bowl.

The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association said yesterday that 2.5 million consumers plan to purchase a new television for Super Bowl Sunday, up from the 1.7 million who said they would last year.

Some 69.7% of consumers plan to celebrate the Super Bowl, compared with 65.9% last year, and 12.8% (versus 9.8% last year) are throwing a party.

In fact, a Circuit City poll of 4,500 men and women found that almost half of Americans (48%) would actually rather see the Super Bowl on HDTV than in person (26%.)

Increasingly, retailers say it's women snapping up the cool TVs.

"In Chicago, we have lots of single women just out of college looking for TVs, and even when women come in with men, they've done more research on details of each TV and picture quality," said Mike Obucina, who's been busily selling TVs at the Best Buy store in Chicago's Bucktown area. "The current rush on big-screens is as big now as it was over the holidays. And in the four years I've worked here, this is the most female buying activity I've seen."

Best Buy's market research has found, for example, that 74% of women list sound quality as a very important aspect to consider, while only 54% of men feel the same.

Women are also almost as motivated by sports as men. Circuit City's survey found that big events like the Super Bowl inspired 49% of all female shoppers to buy an HDTV--not that different than 60% of men.

And the pairing of the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears might just turn out to be a match made in heaven, at least for electronics retailers.

A recent MarketingDaily/Synovate study found that Midwesterners are more likely to socialize in front of the tube: 57% of those with high-tech TVs said they find themselves socializing at home in front of their sets more than two years ago.

A Patriots-Saints face-off wouldn't have been as promising: Just 46% of Northeasterners say they socialize at home more, and only 42% of Southerners.