The Price of Super Bowl Commercials.

 The Super Bowl just happened this past weekend.  I understand the Kansas City Chiefs won and yes I'm a bit late on it but I discovered something about the cost of Super Bowl commercials after I read an article of the best and the worst ones broadcast.

Since the first Super Bowl the cost of a 30 second commercial has increased significantly since 1967,  The first broadcast ran advertisers about $37,500  or when calculated for inflation is equal to $292,903 today.  The latest Super Bowl is estimated to run an advertiser about $5,600,000.

Since the first Super Bowl charged $37,500 but by 1973, less than 10 years later, the cost hit $100,000 and by 1995, the cost was over $1,000,000.  Within 5 years, the cost jumped to over $2,000,000.  Then by 2011, the cost went to $3,000,000, and by 2015, it was over $4,000,000.  Now it is heading towards $6,000,000.

This Sports Illustrated site has a list of costs of of 30 second commercials beginning in 1967, all the way to 2020.  It does not have every year but it has enough years to create a nice graph using original costs or the costs adjusted for inflation.  Students could calculate the percent increase based on costs again adjusted for inflation and graph it.

On the other hand, this site has the cost of add for every year from 1967 to 2020, rather than just a select number.  It said the first Super Bowl cost $47,000 rather than the $37,500 and I've seen it both ways.  This data could be used to create a general graph showing the increase from the first Super Bowl to the current one.

Students could also calculate the percent increase or decrease each year from the first bowl to the current one so they can see which years were steeper than others.  They could break the cost down per minute and compare those.

On the other hand, if they used the number of viewers listed here for each Super Bowl, they could investigate the number of viewers who saw the advertisements and calculate the cost per viewer for the commercial or the increase in cost vs the number of viewers.

If you want to give students a bit more choice, let them explore these sites and then suggest a project they would like to do using the data they have.  There are always going to be foot ball fans in the class who would love to explore this topic because they can relate to it.

I admit, I'm not a football fan and only know when the Super Bowl happens but I enjoy analyzing data so you might get some kids who are interested in that.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.