It’s the most-watched televised event every year. It’s a time to gather friends and family together to celebrate one of America’s favorite pastimes: Super Bowl Sunday.

This year, the New England Patriots make yet another return to the Super Bowl to play the Los Angeles Rams on Feb. 3. The game will be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons. Maroon 5 will headline the halftime show, with guest appearances by rappers Travis Scott and Big Boi. With average ticket prices ranging between $3,000 and $6,000, most Americans will be watching from the comfort of their own homes.

The 71,000 people who will be attending the game narrowly avoided trouble at one of the busiest airports in the world, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Friday, flights into New York’s LaGuardia Airport were temporarily halted due to a shortage of air-traffic control staff. A shortage at one airport causes a cascading effect to other airports. Because of the partial government shutdown that temporarily ended Friday, the Atlanta airport had the longest wait time to get through security, with a maximum wait time of 42 minutes, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Delayed flights could have made it an issue getting into the city, but with an estimated 150,000 football fans pouring into Atlanta for the Super Bowl, it was very likely going to be a problem getting out of the city once Super Bowl LIII has been decided. Atlanta tourism claimed TSA workers from other airports were on board with volunteering to work for the Super Bowl-related traffic, which went above and beyond the call of duty, as no TSA employees were being paid to work at the time.

While Friday saw some movement forward with a deal to reopen the government for three weeks, it’s been put forth in past weeks that it would take a disaster of some type to force legislators in Washington, D.C., to end the partial government shutdown that lasted 35 days. The USDA running out of money for Food and Nutrition benefits didn’t do it; neither did farmers unable to access hurricane relief funding. More than 40,000 members of an American armed force working without pay didn’t tip the scales, nor did federal workers making use of food banks.

Perhaps what forced the nation’s lawmakers into serious talks to end the shutdown could be attributed to some of the loudest voices in fandom — heading off the combined anger of thousands of affluent football fans unable to get to Atlanta on time and forced to wait in line for hours at the airport after the biggest game of the year. It was disaster averted. Let’s hope another potential “disaster” isn’t needed in three weeks.