Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S11E06 - Inside The Super Bowl

Episode Date: February 12, 2022

In this episode, we dive into the Super Bowl. The broadcast not only attracts the biggest viewing audience of the year, it is one of the biggest marketing machines. It affects beer companies and supermarkets and even record sales of the halftime performers. And we’ll also revisit some of the most outrageous Super Bowl moments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook Born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM.

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You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. When the Super Bowl is all done on Sunday, the winning team will be given the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Named after the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers, the trophy is actually made by Tiffany & Company. The luxury jewelry retailer actually makes 65 trophies for different sports, including the championship trophy for the NBA, the men's and women's trophy for the U.S. Open tennis championship,

the FedEx Cup for the PGA Tour, and the World Series trophy for Major League Baseball. The Vince Lombardi trophy for the Super Bowl is made at Tiffany's factory in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Back in 1967, the commissioner of the NFL had a lunch meeting with the vice president of Tiffany to talk about designing the first Super Bowl trophy. The Tiffany VP was Swiss and didn't know much about American football, but sketched a design out on a cocktail napkin right on the spot.

The NFL commish liked it, and that was that. While the first trophy was given out at the first Super Bowl in 1967, the Vince Lombardi Trophy wasn't called the Vince Lombardi Trophy until 1970, after the legendary coach passed away. It takes four full months to make the Super Bowl trophy. It costs about $50,000. A new one is made every year,

so unlike the Stanley Cup, which has to be returned, every winning team gets to keep their trophy. Players receive a smaller replica worth about $1,500. The actual Vince Lombardi trophy stands 56 centimeters or 22 inches tall and weighs 3.2 kilograms or 7 pounds. It is made entirely of sterling silver.

The triangular base holds a silver football, which is the exact size of a regulation-sized game ball. The trophy is made by hand, and there are four different silversmithing techniques employed. The sterling silver sheets are imported from Italy. The silver is heated up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 537 degrees Celsius, to prepare it for shaping. The football's laces are hand-cut and soldered onto the trophy. The football even has dimples, like a real football,

and each dimple is hand-punched. The engraving is also done by hand. It lists the Super Bowl number, the teams, the date, the location, and the final score. Then it is given a final polish. And every year, 32 NFL teams dream of winning it. On Super Bowl Sunday, a lot more than the Vince Lombardi trophy changes hands. It is one of the biggest marketing days of the year. So many different industries make a lot of money off the big game, from beer manufacturers to supermarkets to sporting goods stores to celebrity halftime performers. Everybody talks about Super Bowl commercials, but there is a lot more going on than just expensive ads.

You're under the influence. The Super Bowl is the single most viewed program of the year. As a matter of fact, of the top 20 most watched television events in U.S. history, all but one have been Super Bowls. The outlier was No. 9, the final episode of MASH in 1983. The largest audience was Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, with over 115 million tuning in. 2021 was a 15-year low, with just 91.6 million, if 91 million people can be considered low.

Because the Super Bowl is the largest televised event of the year, it is also an advertising showcase. Knowing that, and knowing it is the one opportunity advertisers have to reach over 100 million people at the same time, special Super Bowl-specific commercials are prepared for the big game. There is a lot of hype around the Super Bowl commercials right now, but instead of talking about the commercials today, I want to talk about the other fascinating marketing aspects of the Super Bowl. Let's start with the ticket price.

Super Bowl tickets can cost more than the average annual salary. They go from roughly $5,000 each, if you can find one for that low price, all the way up to $60,000. The average American income per capita is around $45,000. In Canada, it's $54,000. The high price of the tickets amplifies the importance attached to the game. The steep ticket price is marketing. It's NBC's turn to broadcast the game this year. The price of a commercial in the Super Bowl is always stupefying.

This year, NBC is asking for $6.5 million per 30-second commercial, up from last year's jaw-dropping cost of $5.6 million. That's about $216,666 per second. It's one of the biggest Super Bowl price jumps ever. To put that in some perspective, the average price of a national TV commercial in the U.S. is roughly $115,000. So the Super Bowl demands one mighty premium. A few companies have purchased 90 seconds of airtime in the last few years.

So that costs advertisers like Ford, Chrysler, Google, and Amazon about $16.5 million each. Anheuser-Busch alone spent $25 million in 2019. They gotta sell a lot of beer to make that back. Yet Anheuser is a perennial Super Bowl advertiser. There were 102 ads aired during the game in 2017, and just 64 last year. But the average number of commercials in the Super Bowl is 70.

There are roughly about 50 minutes of ads in the 4-hour broadcast. That means CBS made about... um... carry the one... $560 million last year. Many of the companies that advertise in the game outperformed the S&P 500 in the days afterwards. But here's the interesting part. Research shows that the jump in their stock prices wasn't due to the likability or popularity of the ads themselves. It's just being on the

Super Bowl that counts. The very act of placing themselves in the broadcast makes people more aware of the brands and increases interest in their stocks. Just as Marshall McLuhan famously said, the medium is the message, here the game itself is the big game over the last few years, the Super Bowl has never skipped a year since the very first one was played 55 years ago. The city that hosts the Super Bowl is chosen years in advance.

After placing a bid with the selection committee, the cities are put through a rigorous vetting process. Each city that makes it to the final round then gives one last presentation. A lot is riding on that meeting. This is where elevator pitches come in handy, and they have to be memorable. Cities only get 15 minutes to make their pitch. Then each team owner from that city gets just 5 minutes to make their plea. That's a lot of pressure.

Last year was the very first time in Super Bowl history where one of the teams played in its home stadium. The game was played at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who beat the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Lombardi Trophy in 2021. The decision to choose a city comes down to several key factors

that include things like weather and hotel accommodations. Jacksonville, Florida, was one of the smallest cities to ever host the big game, and it didn't have enough hotel rooms to meet the NFL's requirements. So, in order to land the lucrative game, the city recruited five docked cruise ships to act as floating hotels. The ships provided 7,600 additional hotel rooms, 33 additional restaurants, and 75 additional bars to the festivities.

It's a big deal for a city to land the game, as it brings in a lot of revenue. Typically, around 145,000 people descend on the host city and spend upwards of $400 million. Let's talk about how much food and beverages are consumed as a direct result of the Super Bowl. According to Nielsen data, Americans spend $1.2 billion on beer in the two weeks leading up to the game, and another $1 billion on game day. Now you know why Anheuser-Busch happily spends $25 million on ads.

While beer is the bevy of choice for the Super Bowl, roughly $600 million was spent on spirits and another $650 million on wine. All told, the public spent $13.9 billion on Super Bowl-related products last year.

That's a lot of revenue for a lot of brands. On average, viewers spend just over $74 each that day on food, beverages, and team apparel. The Super Bowl is the second largest food consumption day of the year, beat only by Thanksgiving. That's great news for supermarkets and food manufacturers. It's not a good day for chickens, but it's a great day for the National Chicken Council. Football fans ate 1.4 billion chicken wings during last year's game.

That was a record. Last year, Frito-Lay noticed that the pandemic affected their sales in a positive way. Because of COVID, there were more smaller gatherings, which resulted in increased purchases of chips and salty snacks. So Frito-Lay is investing in additional

capacity this year and is planning on manufacturing 70 million pounds of chips. Enough to fill 7,000 delivery trucks. Restaurants that specialize in the delivery of pizza, chicken wings and tacos Are rubbing their hands in anticipation this year According to the New York Times, for weeks now

Food delivery company DoorDash has employed a group of analytics and finance teams to plan and create algorithmic models to predict hour-by-hour demand on game day. That complex calculus will determine when orders for nachos and wings are going to skyrocket and when the company needs to offer peak pay or other incentives for their dashers to hit the road. Sporting goods stores see a huge bump in jersey sales in the week leading up to the game.

Electronics retailers benefit too, because viewers bought 8.5 million new flat-screen TVs leading up to the Super Bowl last year. And that's not the most surprising statistic you'll hear today. Don't go away. We'll be right back. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes.

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That led to a small problem years later in 1996 during Super Bowl XXX. Leading up to the big day, several internet servers blocked the game. The reason? Super Bowl XXX was Super Bowl XXX in Roman numerals, and servers thought XXX was a porn site. While many businesses make money on Super Bowl Sunday, a furniture store in Houston, Texas actually lost quite a bit of money on the game in 2014. According to ESPN,

the CEO had come up with a novel store promotion idea. First, he flipped a coin to determine whether his store would root for the Broncos or the Seahawks. Seahawks it was. So, anyone who purchased more than $6,000 worth of furniture

and had it delivered by kickoff Sunday would get a full refund if the Seattle Seahawks won. Roughly 1,000 people took him up on that promotion and spent an average of $7,000 each. Well, the Seahawks won. That meant the furniture store lost $7 million000 each. Well, the Seahawks won. That meant the furniture store lost $7 million that day. Normally, stores protect themselves with promotions like that by taking out insurance. The furniture gallery CEO didn't.

He said insurance took the fun out of it. The CEO, known as Mattress Mac, went on to say that while $7 million was a lot of money to lose, it helped his store break through the advertising clutter and attract a lot of media attention. Then, he went and had a lie down. It wasn't until Super Bowl XXV that music superstars became halftime regulars. Prior to that, it was an annual bevy of Broadway performers, marching bands, and even Elvis impersonators. But at Super Bowl XXV, in 1991, the New Kids on the Block were the first pop group to play the big game. Well, they almost played the game. Just as the broadcast

was moving to the halftime show, the network interrupted the program with breaking news on Operation Desert Storm. A condensed version of the halftime show was played after the game that year. The halftime show this year will be sponsored by Pepsi for the 11th time.

Those 12 minutes can cost up to $10 million to stage. Every aspect of the game is a revenue opportunity. Even the coin toss has a sponsor. Not only that, but the coin toss is a big revenue opportunity for sportsbook betting companies. Heads or tails is one bet, but so is whether the player who calls the toss is correct or not. Yet another bet is whether or not the team that wins the Coin Toss wins the game. There have been many unusual moments during past Super Bowls. As you may remember during Super Bowl XLVII,

a power outage plunged the Mercedes-Benz Superdome into darkness for 33 full minutes. When Madonna performed at the halftime show in 2012, she invited a number of guest stars. One of those guests was singer M.I.A., who looked right into the camera and flipped America the bird. The NFL initially filed a $1.5 million claim against M.I.A. and later sought an additional $15.1 million in damages. A confidential settlement was eventually reached, but not before MIA tweeted,

um, Madonna, can I borrow $16 million? At the 2011 Super Bowl, singer Christina Aguilera famously mangled the words to the national anthem. At Super Bowl XLI, Prince gave a standout performance

of Purple Rain during a torrential rainstorm. At the 1993 Super Bowl, Michael Jackson's halftime show got higher ratings than the actual game did. At Super Bowl LV, a streaker ran across the field, not naked, but in a pink bodysuit. He was tackled by about 10 security guards. He was then arrested and charged with misdemeanor trespassing. The judge ruled the streaker was to serve 12 months probation, perform 100 hours of community service, and write a letter of apology to the NFL.

The streaker offered to write a check instead. The judge was not impressed, saying that people with means should not be able to get out of a difficult situation just by offering money. So there. But maybe the most controversial halftime performance of all time is the one that has become known as Nipplegate.

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Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. As you no doubt remember, Janet Jackson was performing and was joined on stage by Justin Timberlake. While they were singing his hit Rock Your Body,ake reached over in a choreographed move, made sure he had a good grip, and pulled the tearaway patch just as he was singing the line, "'Cause I gotta have you naked by the end of this song." And Janet Jackson's breast made a Super Bowl appearance that lasted 9 sixteenths of a second. Later, the incident was blamed on a wardrobe malfunction.

Apparently, Timberlake was initially to pull a tearaway dress off Jackson, revealing a body stocking. But it didn't go well in rehearsal. So Jackson and Timberlake came up with a simpler idea after the rehearsal, unbeknownst

to MTV or the NFL. A smaller tearaway patch was just supposed to reveal one red bra cup, but it ended up revealing much more than that. There was a lot of fallout from that moment. For starters, the FCC received 540,000 complaints. It fined CBS about a buck per, for a record $550,000. CBS implemented a five-second delay on all live performances from that day forward. The NFL announced that MTV, who produced the halftime show,

would not be involved in any Super Bowl shows in the future. One year later, three Silicon Valley tech guys were having dinner, discussing the wardrobe malfunction and moaning about the fact you couldn't find footage of the incident online. Back then, in 2004, there was no such thing as a viral video. The tech guys thought it would be a great idea to create an online site where people could share video of the Janet Jackson incident,

and any other video for that matter. One year later, the site inspired by the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction was launched. They called it YouTube. But those weren't the only lasting effects of that Super Bowl moment. After the Super Bowl, CBS insisted that Janet Jackson apologize on video. And a very subdued Jackson complied. My decision to change the Super Bowl performance was actually made after the final rehearsal.

MTV, CBS, the NFL had no knowledge of this whatsoever. And unfortunately, the whole thing went wrong in the end. I am really sorry if I offended anyone. That was truly not my intention. Timberlake apologized in a more low-key fashion. But what happened subsequently was very telling. First, CBS later appealed its $550,000 fine and didn't have to pay it. Justin Timberlake appeared on the Grammys not long after, and his career continued to climb. Janet Jackson's went in the opposite direction.

After the Super Bowl incident, she released an album that became her lowest-selling record since 1984. Billboard ran a story saying that radio conglomerate Clear Channel banned Jackson's music from its 1,200 radio stations, which they later denied. Her songs were given very low airplay not just on other radio stations, but also reportedly on MTV, who may have been unhappy with the loss of future Super Bowl business, and that lack of airplay essentially killed any chances

of her new album succeeding. Jackson had acting offers suddenly disappear. She would eventually leave her label. It would be seven years before another female performer headlined the halftime show. Timberlake was invited back to the Super Bowl in 2018. Janet Jackson was never asked again. The Super Bowl broadcast is roughly four hours long.

When you look at the $6.5 million price tag for a commercial, it's easy to think that is crazy money. But where else can an advertiser find a live audience who watches every second of every commercial, and that audience is one-third of the entire population? When you do that math, the price suddenly isn't so unreasonable. The Super Bowl is the biggest marketing show of the year. Every inch is sold as a revenue opportunity. Host cities see an influx of over $400 million on game day. Billions are spent on beer and snacks.

Restaurants, supermarkets, delivery companies, and sporting goods stores all see huge upticks in revenue around Super Bowl Sunday. Certain Texas furniture stores, not so much. Little did we know that YouTube was inspired by Janet Jackson's appearance at the

Super Bowl. While performers do not get paid to appear on the halftime show, they do enjoy other rewards. The following year after the wardrobe malfunction, the NFL chose to go with Paul McCartney,

safe in the assumption he would keep his nipples at bay. McCartney's record sales jumped 540% after the Super Bowl. Madonna's record sales bounced up 410% after her appearance. Prince's album and digital download sales all doubled.

And according to Nielsen Research, Justin Timberlake's record sales jumped 160% immediately after his Super Bowl appearance with Janet Jackson. In the Super Bowl, everybody makes money. Well, almost everybody. Some come for the party, some come for the commercials, some come for the halftime show, and some even come for the football.

When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrestrial Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Jeff Devine. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefevre. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like Putting Fans in Stands How Sports Teams Sell Tickets Season 9, Episode 3

You'll find it in our archives wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to know more about this podcast, the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio, or the people behind our podcasts, go to apostrophepodcasts.ca

See you next week. Fun fact. There are only about 11 minutes of actual football action in every Super Bowl broadcast. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it enter felix the health care company helping canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year weight loss is more than just diet and exercise it can be about tackling genetics hormones metabolism felix

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