February 14, 2025

For decades, American stadium designers aimed to pack as many spectators into a space as safely as possible. In recent years, though, amenities like upscale concession stands and luxury boxes have become increasingly important to the financial health of American sports venues. This video looks at how the Superdome in New Orleans was rebuilt to make as much money as possible, from streamlined snack bars and walking paths to pricey club seating and suites. 

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February 10, 2025

This year, AI firms flocked to buy Super Bowl commercials, hoping to make a huge splash about their new products in a cost-effective way. A 30-second spot during Super Bowl LIX cost about $8 million, which may seem like a lot to pay for a short ad. Given that the massively popular game drew in more than 200 million viewers, however, a commercial’s cost-per-viewer actually amounts to less than a nickel. It’s incentives like these that motivated Google to use Continue reading

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February 13, 2024

More than 113 million people tuned into Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday, a staggering audience that is increasingly rare these days. “In this era of fragmentation, the Super Bowl is what television used to be,” said media analyst Brad Adgate. Of course, these viewers are a potential goldmine for advertisers, who must pay a small fortune for the chance to grab the public’s attention on this massive stage. The going rate for a 30-second spot on this year’s broadcast was Continue reading

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August 23, 2023

Stroll by the tennis courts in your local park on a sunny day and you’re bound to see plenty of people swinging racquets, but some of them won’t be playing tennis. They’re taking part in the nation’s fastest growing sport: pickleball, a paddle game where players hit a hollow plastic ball back and forth over a net. Unlike tennis, pickleball requires little prior skill or innate athletic ability to enjoy, allowing it to amass an enormous following in a short Continue reading

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February 24, 2023

This week, the esports talent agency GameSquare announced that it hired Tyler “Ninja” Blevins as its Chief Innovation Officer. A famous Fortnite streamer with more than 17 million followers on the platform Twitch, the company said Ninja will “curate disruptive strategies, pursue new business opportunities, and explore next-gen technologies to accelerate the [e-sports] industry’s growth within pop culture.” This will also give Ninja another source of revenue besides streaming, which he claims to earn $500,000 a month from while keeping Continue reading

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February 14, 2023

When it comes to Super Bowl ads, there are two factors that usually help companies stand out from the rest of the pack: making people laugh, or failing that, being such a big brand that people cannot help but think of your ad after the game. This year, though, the spot that took first place in USA Today’s annual Ad Meter poll did not try for comedy, nor did it come from a major company that routinely tops the list. Continue reading

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February 8, 2023

In 1989, Anheuser-Busch signed an agreement with the NFL giving the brewer exclusive rights to advertise alcohol nationally during the Super Bowl. After 33 years of having a monopoly over big game beer ads, however, AB InBev decided not to renew their license this year. And as the video below shows, the field is now wide open for companies like MillerCoors to reach a big national audience that has previously been unavailable to them.

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December 2, 2022

The 2022 FIFA World Cup moves into the knockout stages this weekend, a nerve-wracking time when teams can be eliminated with a single loss. While the tournament’s soccer stars will experience a dramatic increase of tension on the field, the host country Qatar has already faced plenty of global pressure since FIFA awarded them the event in 2010. The Middle East nation has long been accused of using corruption to land the World Cup, leading to a 2015 indictment from Continue reading

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July 27, 2022

Each year, media companies spend tens of billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast sporting events from professional leagues like the NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball. In fact, by 2024 Disney, Comcast, Paramount, and Fox are expected to spend a combined total of $24.2 billion on broadcast rights for sports, almost double what they paid ten years ago. That is, unless tech conglomerates like Apple and Google splash even more cash in an effort to expand into this Continue reading

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February 15, 2022

For 34 years, USA Today has tracked consumer appreciation of Super Bowl commercials in its annual Ad Meter poll. This year’s top spot went to a light-hearted ad featuring Anna Kendrick picking out Barbie’s dream house for Rocket Mortgage, which also won last year with a funny celebrity cameo commercial. Amazon similarly scored big with a self-deprecating spot featuring Scarlett Johnansen and Colin Jost while Doritos landed in the top five thanks to a song from Megan Thee Stallion Continue reading

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