Excesses of Super Bowl kicked into touch by slump

Published on Friday 30 January 2009 21:21

THE hot dogs are sizzling and the beers are on ice. But as the bitter winds of recession continue to blow, it is clear there is something a little less super about the Super Bowl this year.

Like so many businesses affected by the economic downturn, American football's annual jamboree of hype and excess has been downsized.

Advertisers who would once have fought over the coveted television slots for tomorrow's big game at a record $3 million (2.1 million) for 30 seconds are running for the hills. Ticket prices are down, hotel rooms in Tampa are empty, and the famous Playboy Bunnies are packing the champagne and caviar because they can no longer afford to party.

It is a harsh dose of reality for an event some are calling the Recession Bowl.

"It's still an unrivalled marketing event and a uniquely American spectacular, but there's no question that demand is softer than in previous years," said Tim Calkins, professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, Illinois.

"The Super Bowl is, in many ways, a reflection of the US economy and we've certainly seen an impact of the recession."

Noticeable by their absence from TV screens this year will be the nation's Big Three car makers, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, whose shrinking budgets, growing debts and adverse publicity over a 9 billion government bail-out discouraged them from buying the world's most expensive advertisements – a first for the event.

Instead, it will be the high-performance sports cars and rugged 4x4s of Audi and Hyundai that snaffle the starring role, after their German and Korean creators snatched the opportunity to capitalise.

Other Super Bowl regulars missing from the big screen will be the scantily clad lingerie models of Victoria's Secret and the delivery drivers of FedEx, though Pepsi and the makers of Budweiser beer were able to afford an asking price, up 11 per cent on last year.

Prof Calkins said the slow take-up for advertisements that will be seen by an estimated US audience of 100 million points to a definite downturn. "In September, NBC was saying it had sold something like 90 per cent of slots, and this week they were saying exactly the same thing," he said.

"They'll sell them all, but you can be sure there is a lot of aggressive negotiating going on. The list price is $3 million, but what people actually pay is quite different."

Meanwhile in Tampa, the legendary Super Bowl week parties – largely funded by corporate America and a magnet for any publicity-conscious celebrity worth his or her salt – are harder to find.

Playboy, the soft-porn magazine publisher that last year hosted a $2,000-a-head bash complete with a Bunny for every table, announced there would be no party for the first time in a decade. Playboy announced this month that it was cutting jobs and expenses, in response to disappointing 2008 figures.

The Sports Illustrated party, a mainstay of the pre-game scene, is another casualty. The glossy magazine's parent company, Time Inc, withdrew in November after cutting 6 per cent of its 10,000-strong workforce.

For the supporters of the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers teams who still have jobs and can afford the journey to Florida, the second-hand ticket market is working in their favour, relatively speaking. The online broker StubHub said tickets with a face value of $500 were changing hands this week for an average $2,500 (1,750), a 40 per cent drop from 2008.

Unusually, more than 60 hotels in Tampa and neighbouring St Petersburg still had rooms available this week for the estimated 100,000 people heading to the game and associated festivities, according to the two cities' tourism offices.

And, reflecting bleak economic times for the media, even the number of accredited journalists covering the game is down by 200 from last year to 4,589, the National Football League (NFL) reports.

Financial analyst PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted a study into Super Bowl economics and concluded that the estimated 105 million boost the game would bring to Tampa was 22.3 per cent lower than that realised by Glendale, Arizona, a year ago.

To the NFL, which is laying off 150 of its 1,100 staff to combat the recession, nothing has changed.

"We are in full swing and our fans will see everything they expect from the world's greatest one-day event," said Brian McCarthy, the director of corporate communications.

Meanwhile, one industry is expecting a bumper pay-day. Many of Tampa's 43 licensed strip clubs, some only yards from the stadium, have hired extra staff and are importing lap dancers from Las Vegas to cope with the demand.

BACKGROUND

1869: Rutgers and Princeton played the first college soccer game. During the next seven years, rugby gained popularity and modern American football began to develop.

1873: Representatives from Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Rutgers codified a set of intercollegiate football rules. Previously, each college had its own rules that visiting teams had to adhere to.

1933: NFL chiefs made changes from the rules that applied in college football, such as legalising forward passes.

1951: The NFL Championship Game was televised coast-to-coast for the first time on 23 December. The DuMont Network paid $75,000 for the rights to the game.

1963: The Professional Football Hall of Fame was opened in Canton, Ohio.

1981: In a CBS-New York Times poll, football beat baseball as favourite sport by 48 per cent to 31 per cent.

1994: The NFL and Fox announced a joint venture to create a six-team World League to begin play in Europe.

2006: NFL clubs agreed a revenue sharing programme to redistribute $900 million.