PLB Sports Nation

Now that the championship games are over, the nation, and to a larger extent, the world, gears up for another Super Bowl.  This year though, amidst a continued recession in the United States, some are beginning to question…”Is the Super Bowl still Super?”

The Super Bowl is the pinnacle in American sports achievement and its the marketing exec’s  dream event.  100 million people viewing your 30-second spot.  And true, it costs a pretty penny, but its worth it…right?

Maybe…but maybe not.

Last year, the 100+ 30 second commercials that ran throughout the Super Bowl cost about $3 million dollars a piece, bringing in approximately $213 million in revenue for NBC.  This year, ad prices have seemingly hovered somewhere around the $2.7 – $2.8 million dollar range, prices which are actually in line with the 2008 Super Bowl, although its rumored that some ads have been going for as low as $2.5 million, especially as CBS looks to sell the few remaining spots before the game on February 7th.

The line of thinking that everyone would quickly purchase all of the ads due to the “sale price” isn’t necessarily without backing, its just not quite correct.  Last month, Pepsi surprised the sports business world when they decided to pull all of their Super Bowl advertising, choosing instead to focus the advertising dollars on internet and new media marketing.

Pepsi had been a mainstay in Super Bowl advertising for the last 23 years.

But why in the world would Pepsi pass up a sale on the largest sporting event in America to focus on the internet?

The recession.

In economic downturns, companies are more likely to buy Super Bowl advertising when they want to make an impact by jumpstarting a brand or introducing themselves, said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Kellogg School of Management. But it’s an expensive proposition for companies like Pepsi and FedEx that would otherwise use the game to simply remind people they’re still out there. (via Yahoo!)

“…companies looking to jumpstart a brand or introduce themselves…” According to TNS Media Intelligence, many new advertisers are getting into the Super Bowl game this year, as almost a quarter of the companies have never run an ad during the game.

So where does this leave us?  Less revenue generated from ad spots, long-time advertisers spending their ad dollars elsewhere…Is the Super Bowl still “super”? There are still many companies that would say “yes”.  You can still expect commercials from a lot of long time sponsors during the game, Frito-Lay (a Pepsi subsidiary), Anhesuer-Busch, and Go Daddy, amongst others.  And of course, the millions of fans will still be glued to their television sets during the game, but still, that nagging question still remains…Maybe its not a fair question with the elasticity of the ad prices so easily effected due to the recession.  Maybe everything will not only bounce back, but exceed expectations by this time next year.  But, maybe not.  Only time will tell.