Yup, today Phil woke up from his long winter slumber yesterday, and there’s all sorts of exciting stuff going on. Supposedly there are now multiple rodents (is a groundhog a rodent?) that people observe to determine how many more weeks of winter we are going to get. Isn’t this a strange tradition? According to one site, there are 34 other groundhogs with the same occupation, including a llama and a chicken.

How much money do you think is made off of this non-event? I mean a groundhog sticking its head out of a hole is watched by more than 12,000 people and covered all over the national news (2,020 articles written according to Google, with this one as 2,021), there has to be someone making money off this. In fact, one of the websites I linked to above is actually called Committee for the Commercialization of Groundhog Day. How do you calculate how much money is made though? How about in the media? I’d be willing to bet that hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising revenue are made through all the advertising that accompanies news segments and articles about Phil and his fellow weather forecasting rodent competitors.

Other notable organizations that seem interested in the commercialization of this chubby-bellied, big-toothed creature include the PA Tourism Office and the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. Know of any others?

Oh by the way, the original, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow… and you know what that means!