Super Bowl LX Drives Record Advertising, Betting, and Viewership

Remy: If investors want to forget about the volatility in the markets this week, well, this weekend might be the perfect escape. Super Bowl Sunday is less than 48 hours away. The 60th iteration of the big game brings us a rematch of the 2015 Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. And joining us this morning is Rick Horrow, CEO of Horrow Sports Ventures. Rick happy Friday.

So first give us an overview of your expectations for the Super Bowl.

Rick: Well I'm here at Radio Row. So the overview is it's a tough ticket. And, you know, it's like $13-14,000 get in, plus club seat price. That's the overview. The other overview is that when you think about it, $8 million of ad spots sold out, up to $10 million with NBC in September. 40% of these are first time advertisers, by the way. at the end of the day, these will propel marketing directors to either the top of their class or they're going to sell insurance after this week.

Remy: Yeah. And Rick, as you mentioned, Super Bowl boxes are always fun but hard to get. So take us through the stats when it comes to the parties, the viewership as well as the gambling.

Rick: Well, a lot of frenzy out here, obviously, but 80% of Americans plan to watch. Now, Remy, I'm sure you're part of the 80%. If I'm part of the 20%, that's not going to watch, I'm going to not going to let people know that because, you know, am I ageek? It's up from 75% the previous year. The 51% go to friends' parties. So we all know as Americans we're hang-arounders. And at the end of the day, we're all watching television. Last year's record, by the numbers, was about 127.7 million. Now we've got the counting. The old Nielsen numbers are not just you call people up and say, are you watching now? It's churches, it's bars. It's everybody else that leads to those $10,000,000, 30 second ad spots. leads to the rights fees.

So it is a big frenzy, frankly, that would have happened regardless of who was in the game.

Remy: Yeah. And Rick, as you mentioned, most of us are watching the big game on TV, and we've been showing some of those Anthropic commercials targeting open AI. So the Super Bowl is perhaps the only fun time to watch ads. So take us through the numbers when it comes to the ads and what you're expecting.

Rick: Well, again, the ads sold out. numbers are quite prolific. Again, this is the time where the ad agencies make their money and the marketing directors either make their investments or they don't. When you talk about the AI, we talk about gaming, and that's really important. As you said, you had your prior guess about $1.7 billion of real money, legal money admitted, money invested in legal wagers, a 27% rise from last year.

And so when you think about it, these ads kick in as never before. So we're going to look at some really exciting stuff. It's the old Budweiser frogs. It's on steroids. Maybe that's not the right word to use. Uh, predict. You want a prediction?

Remy: Yeah, sure. Rick. Go ahead.

Rick: Yeah. Of course. So, New England, $9.25 million net worth, according to CNBC, number 5. Seattle, 19th at $7 million. So New England's got to win weight. The game is not decided in the boardroom. It's decided on the field. So I have no idea.

Remy: Yeah. What about predictions for the Olympics since we have about less than 60s here?

Rick: Yeah,right. Predictions on the Olympics are quite interesting. You know, the $15 billion in total spending. The deal is going to be a very significant one. The arena that everybody was talking about for hockey. First NHL participation since 2014. Looks like it'll get done with the NHL crew from the Winter classic going straight to Cortina to oversee that. 2,900 competitors, 90 countries. Lindsey Vonn, fifth Olympics, unbelievable, wins the downhill gold in 2010. Is she going to win again this year? I don't know, but it's a heck of a story.

Remy: Well, Rick, we'll have to wait and see. Thank you so much for joining us.