US$8 million for 30 seconds. A television advertisement during the Super Bowl is expensive.
In fact, no paid promotion anywhere in the world costs that much.
For instance, the equivalent for a World Cup final or Olympic Games opening or closing ceremony is $1 million–$2.5 million.
But the costs do not stop there because advertisers spend millions more on production, celebrity talent and promotional campaigns.
It underlines the fact that the annual extravaganza of American football is big business.
“From a commercial perspective, there’s no other sporting event - nationally or globally - that’s like the Super Bowl,” North Carolina State University Professor of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management Mike Edwards said in this article.
The 60th edition of game is being played on Sunday (Monday AEDT) at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Almost 70,000 people are expected pack into the home of the San Francisco 49ers to watch the New England Patriots play the Seattle Seahawks for the right to call themselves ‘world champions’.
While nobody takes that title seriously, given the game involves only American teams, it is watched around the world, with Super Bowl LX expected to be viewed by millions of people and generate billions of dollars of economic activity.
Here are some facts:
- Super Bowl LIX (2025) averaged 128 million U.S. viewers across TV and streaming, with 192 million people watching at least part of the game.
- The game could potentially reach 1 billion people in more than 200 countries, according to the National Football League.
- About 330,000 people visited Las Vegas for Super Bowl LVII in 2024, and helped generate an economic impact of $600 million in southern Nevada in 2024.
Broadcast rights for a Super Bowl can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, with the major U.S. broadcasters CBS, Fox, NBC, and ABC sharing the duty from year to year, with the game also available on streaming platforms.
Networks have reaped up to $650 million to $800 million in advertising revenue from a single Super Bowl broadcast in recent years.
The spending does not stop there, with official merchandise sales estimated at $620 million in 2023.
People also use their credit or debit cards to splash out on food, apparel, team gear, decorations and electronic devices, with $17 billion outlayed by U.S. consumers around the Super Bowl period, according to data and business intelligence data platform Statista.
Gambling is another money spinner with a record $1.76 billion set to be legally wagered in the United States on Super Bowl LX, according to this Reuters story.
“No single event brings fans together like the Super Bowl, and this record figure shows just how much Americans enjoy sports betting as part of the experience,” the American Gaming Association said in a press release.
The Seahawks are favoured to win by about 4.5 points on the spread.