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Super Bowl
And hats off to advertisers who bought 2nd half
By Jeff Bercovici
You have to hand it to the St. Louis Rams: Win or lose, they make for an exciting Super Bowl.
In a game that sports lovers and advertisers will remember fondly, the New England Patriots edged past the heavily favored Rams to win Super Bowl XXXVI.
The Fox broadcast scored a 42.5 overnight rating and 61 share, according to Nielsen Media Research. That's 7 percent better than than last year's CBS broadcast of the Ravens-Giants matchup, which scored a 39.7/58.
Complete viewership numbers aren't yet out, but there's good reason to believe they will approach those of two years ago, when the Rams shut down the Tennessee Titans one yard outside the end zone in another down-to-the-wire contest.
That game scored a 43.2 household rating and 62 share, averaging 88.4 million viewers.
The Patriots represent a larger TV market than the Titans, and last night's game was, if anything, even more dramatic than Super Bowl XXXIV.
The Patriots, 14-point underdogs going into Sunday, dominated the first three quarters of the game, limiting the most explosive offense in the NFL to a mere three points.
New England's defense forced three turnovers, which its offense had converted into a 17-3 lead by the end of the third quarter.
But then the Rams came alive, scoring two fast touchdowns to tie the score with 1:37 left in regulation. The Patriots got the ball back with no timeouts and drove downfield, and kicker Adam Vinatieri drilled a 48-yard field goal as the clock ran out to win the game.
Adding to the drama, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, facing off against MVP Kurt Warner, became, at 24, the youngest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl.
His team, which finished last in its division last season, had to pull off a string of upsets in the playoffs just to make it to New Orleans yesterday, while the Rams have been touted as likely Super Bowl champions virtually since the start of the season.
The excitement was not lost on Bostonians, who in 1997 watched their team lose to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXI. The game scored a 56.1/78 rating/share in Boston, which led all metered markets. St. Louis was not far behind with a 52.4/81.
The climactic nature of the contest means that advertisers who took a chance on cheaper third and fourth quarter spots got more than their money’s worth, especially since a 30-second commercial sold for an average of $1.9 million this year, less than in recent seasons.
Viewership of Super Bowl XXXIV, which had a comparably thrilling ending, peaked in the fourth quarter with a 46.4 household rating, the percentage of households that watched the broadcast. Eighteen million more viewers tuned in for the end of that game than watched the kickoff.
Paul McCartney, Marc Anthony, Mary J. Blige and others performed in the "Freedom"-themed pregame show last night, and Irish rockers U2 played during halftime.
NBC tried to exploit the halftime lull with a special edition of "Fear Factor" featuring Playboy Playmates as contestants. CBS went with a female-skewing movie, "Sabrina," and ABC aired reruns of "Alias" and "The Practice."
February 4, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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