Impact of the Recession Cont'd. - Super Bowl

This is another in our continuing series of the posts on the impact of the global economic crisis on sports. Regular readers may have noticed that I have changed the title of these posts from impact of the credit crisis to impact of the recession. It's not that I think the credit crisis is over, although credit is clearly beginning to loosen up, it's just that there is no longer any doubt that we are in a recession and that it is likely to continue for at least the next three quarters.

NBC, a unit of General Electric, is charging up to $3 million for a Super Bowl spot this year and that has some longtime Super Bowl advertisers rethinking their plans. Of course, the economy hasn't helped. GM for one has decided to forgo the big game this year, which has advertising in 16 games. If GM's pleas to Congress are to be believed, the car maker may be in bankruptcy by the time the game rolls around anyway.

FedEx has yet to commit to advertising in the Super Bowl partly out of concern about how paying the price of ads and the surrounding activation campaign would appear when asking employees to tighten their belts due to the economic climate.

While on the surface this migh t be damaging to NBC at a time it can least afford it, in truth it may not hurt much at all. As of September 1, the network had sold 90% of its total inventory at mostly regular asking price, so it profit picture is pretty well locked in. However, at last check the available inventory is the same as it was on September 1, which is not a great sign. I'm guessing it will remaing the same until sometime in early January. You know that the economy is in a major slowdown when the year's highest rated program and its true event programming has yet to sell out only a little over two months away.

UPDATE: The NFL is reducing the price of playoff tickets approximately 10% in response "to the economic challenges facing fans." Commissioner Roger Goodell sent pricing guidelines to all of the teams which also authorized them to charge less for opening round games than for later games. The price for Super Bowl tickets has also been reduced from $800 to $500, the first time a Super Bowl ticket has been reduced by the league.