More than 150-million people are expected to watch the Super Bowl this Sunday evening, as the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos vie for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Football Analyst Matt Sabuda says the Super Bowl is generally the most watched television event of the year with the big money being focused, of course, on TV commercials.
"In 1967 for Super Bowl I, a commercial for the big game cost $42,000, which if adjusted for inflation would be about $300,000 today," says Sabuda. "While $300,000 wouldn't even buy you two seconds in this year's Super Bowl. The price tag for 30 seconds of air time this year costs $5-million. Add all the commercials up for this year's game and advertisers will spend nearly $400-million throughout the three hour game."
"The Super Bowl really changed dramatically about 25 years ago for the Bills first appearance, most evident in the production of the half time show and a couple of years later in the merchandising around the event when they started selling everything associated with the game," notes Sabuda.
"Before Super Bowl XXV, despite a few known performers, the NFL was going with an assortment with of entertainers and marching bands," says Sabuda. "Then enter the Bills run, starting with Super bowl XXV and things changed overnight... with big name acts of the day like New Kids on the Block, Gloria Estefan, Michael Jackson and Clint Black... It was at this point that the era of the epic halftime show really began. Once the NFL realized they could make every aspect of the game marketable, it became a runaway train morphing into the mega event it is today."
In terms of which team will earn the Lombardi trophy, Sabuda says, "Despite being the underdogs in the game, I think the Broncos have a better shot than people are giving them. My reason is I think it kind of reminds a little bit of the Super Bowl a few years ago when Peyton Manning and the Broncos actually lost the Super Bowl to the Seahawks. That year, the Seahawks had a dominating defense with a solid yet unspectacular offense. I think this year that kind of sums up the Broncos, but if that Bronco's defense doesn't come to play like it did against the Patriots, we'll likely see the Panthers get their first Super Bowl championship."
