ABSTRACT
In the United States, the National Football League’s annual championship, the Super Bowl, is viewed as the nation’s ultimate sports event, drawing huge television ratings and creating a scene in popular culture that is so pervasive it has been compared to a national holiday (Hinckley, 2014). Across the world, the Super Bowl has a smaller following than the FIFA World Cup, the Olympic Games, and Formula One racing (Martin and Reeves, 2010). The Super Bowl attracts more than 108 million television viewers in the USA as well as a larger global audience (Schultz, 2013), and the cost of buying a 30-second Super Bowl television advert is about $4 million, more than the cost of purchasing any other television programming (Smith, 2013). Advertising during the Super Bowl does not just garner television viewers for sponsors of the stadium and the event. Crupi (2012) points out that when Metlife purchased the naming rights for the stadium that hosted Super Bowl XLVII, it gained more brand impressions than many other sports properties. Super Bowl advertising and sponsorship also sparks social media conversations that build buzz around the brands (Lee and Fixmer, 2013). The projected economic impact of Super Bowl XLVII was estimated at more than $600 million, a figure similar to previous Super Bowls (Schlossberg, 2013). Hosting a Super Bowl is thought to increase expenditure by fans; not only will this spectacle increase tourism (Newman, 2013), but it will also spur fans to purchase a variety of items (Rishe, 2013), including tickets to the game, food and beverages, legal and illegal betting (Traina, 2014), and merchandise (Lefton, 2013a).
