The Super Bowl is big.. ..but how big?

It's Super Bowl sunday. The Indianapolis Colts take on the New Orleans Saints. It's going to be huge. It is big business, but is it the biggest annual sports event in the world?

Before we answer that, let's look at some of the stats associated with Super Bowl XLIV (from the Sunday Times).

A 30 second ad for tonight's game costs $2.8m - almost 70 times the cost in 1967 ($42, 500).

4 million Americans have bought a new TV for the game.

An incredible 350 pizza slices per second, 11 million lbs of potato chips and 4, 000 tons of popcorn will be consumed!

The average American will spend $50 on Super Bowl-related merchandise and food.

And over 100 million people will watch the game.

So, we're agreed, right? It's huge.

Indeed, in purely commercial terms it may be the biggest game of them all. But the BBC this week reported that in 2009, for the first time, it was not the most-watched annual sports event. That accolade went to the Champions League final (yes, soccer). 109 million people from around the globe watch the final between Barcelona and Manchester United (versus 106 million for the Super Bowl).

It's an interesting contrast because the tiny difference masks a huge difference in profile. The Champions League makes its numbers from global aaudiences, while the Super Bowl is much more limited to North America.

For marketers, the ability to reach around 100 million people watching in one country on one channel must account for the huge advertising premiums, whereas reaching a globally dispersed and diverse population must present real challenges - but also opportunities for global brands.



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Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com