Victory with a millionth score - Newspaper Kommersant No. 27 (7472) dated 02/14/2023
The 2023 National Football League (NFL) Championship Final was outstanding. In a dramatic confrontation, the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles with a score of 38:35. Even more outstanding, the main media event in the US can be considered because of the record fees, which will be reported by American broadcasters. After all, the cost of a 30-second video during the broadcast of the NFL finals for the first time reached $ 7 million.
The event of the level of the NFL championship finals, also referred to as the Super Bowl (held last Sunday), in addition to the sports component itself, also has an equally exciting commercial side. In the 2023 version, both components pleased those involved. The one that relates to sports - fans. The one that concerns business - the organizers of the action.
To begin with, the NFL Finals gave America another superhero. It's about Patrick Mahomes. The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback, without exaggeration, became the protagonist of the finals, who managed to turn the tide of the confrontation that was unsuccessfully developing for his team. By the break, "Leaders" were losing 14:24, and finished the match with a score of 38:35. It was Mahomes who made this “return”, finishing the match with a knee injury. Not for nothing, it seems, in the summer of 2020, Kansas management agreed to give Mahomes (he led the Chiefs to the first championship victory in half a century that year) a contract for $ 503 million over ten years. This is a net salary, excluding revenue from advertising contracts. “I told you all weekend that nothing would stop me,” Mahomes said after the match, which resulted in the Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. “This is the final, and this is not the time to think about health.”
As for the business success of the organizers of the show, it is tied not least to the sale of advertising on television. Note that the Super Bowl is broadcast in turn by NBC and Fox (this time it was the turn of the latter). The cost of a 30-second video - and they are sold out long before the final - was $ 7 million. To fuel public interest, famous performers are invited to perform during the Super Bowl. This time it was Rihanna. The performer even considered it right to coincide with the announcement that she was expecting a second child, precisely in time for her performance at the Super Bowl.
I must say that advertising time can be bought in other formats other than 30 seconds - 15, 45 seconds, 1 minute and beyond. The specific price of 1 second depends on the total duration of the order. But on average, during the broadcast, about 50 minutes of advertising goes on the air.
That is, all the advertising time allocated for the Super Bowl can bring in about $700 million.
The cost of 30 seconds of advertising time during the broadcast of the NFL Finals is one of the most monitored indicators in the US sports industry. It has come a long way since 1967, when the Super Bowl in its current form first took place. 56 years ago, TV companies that bought the rights to broadcast the show (the first and last time two TV companies broadcast the NFL Finals at the same time) charged about $40,000 for a 30-second spot. The return on investment was so impressive that ten years later the price reached $125,000 In 1987 - and by that time the Super Bowl had long been established as an event comparable in terms of commercial capacity even to Christmas - the mark of $600,000 was taken. $2.38 million, in 2017 it was $5 million. The current figure, as already mentioned, is a record one. But, apparently, he will not have to remain so for long.
Separately, it is worth mentioning the shadow financial component of the Super Bowl. This event is a powerful catalyst for the gambling business. According to estimates by the American Gambling Association, a total of about $16 billion was wagered on the outcome of the match. This is a record amount. However, only about $ 1 billion of the indicated amount fell on legal rates. Everything else was absorbed by the black market.