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Friday, 27 January 2012 04:21

Written by Dan Gigler

Media analyst extraordinaire Brad Adgate, Senior VP Research for Horizon Media, sends along an impressive list of statistics about the Super Bowl, reflecting the sheer cash cow that it is. Those are below, along with a bunch of awesomely nerdy charts vis-a-vis this kind of thing.

Bad beers, great ad campaign.

(source: Kantar Media)

How Large Is The Super Bowl Versus Other Sport Franchises?

Major League Baseball’s World Series and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship are two other high profile sporting events that attract significant interest from TV advertisers. But how do these compare to the Super Bowl in terms of ad spend?

The World Series is comprised of four to seven games. March Madness peaks with the semi-finals and championship on its final weekend, a total of three games. The Super Bowl, of course, is a single telecast. In recent years, it has been pulling away from March Madness and exceeds the World Series in years when the Fall Classic lasts five games or fewer.

Some more stats about Super Bowl broadcasts:

• The average audience for the Super Bowl has grown six consecutive years resulting in an increase of 25 million viewers (a figure higher than the average audience of American Idol).

• At 106.5 million in 2010 & 111.0 million in 2011 the last two Super Bowls are the two most watched television shows ever surpassing the MASH finale of 1983.

• With a household rating of 49.1 the highest rated Super Bowl was Super Bowl XVI on CBS (San Francisco over Cincinnati) in 1982, it is the fourth highest rated telecast ever behind the MASH finale (1983) the who shot JR episode on Dallas (1980) & the finale of the mini-series Roots (1977). These events were right before the growth in popularity of cable.

• Nearly half of the 20 highest rated telecasts are Super Bowls.

• With a household rating of 46.1 last year’s Super Bowl ranked as the 16^th highest rated program ever.  It was the highest rated Super Bowl since 1986.

• Among sporting events 37 of the 40 highest rated have been Super Bowls, only the 1994 Winter Olympics (women’s figure skating Nancy Kerrigan & Tonya Harding) and the 1982 NFC Championship game featuring “The Catch” were not Super Bowls.

• Last year 45.9% of the Super Bowl’s audience were female, the percentage of woman viewing is the highest in at least 20 years.

• Last year 51 million viewers to the Super Bowl were female, by comparison The Oscars last year averaged 37.9 million total viewers.

• The Super Bowl was the highest rated kids and teens program on television last year at 23.2 and 32.9 respectively.

• The median age for the Super Bowl has been in the low 40’s for the past eight games including 42.5 last year.

And, the hard data of Super Bowl broadcasts & ratings:

• Top 100 broadcasts of all time by ratings
• Top 75 sports broadcasts of all time
• Super Bowl ratings, viewers & ad rate

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