Much more than an American football final, the Super Bowl doubles up as a showcase for advertising creativity, with a gigantic audience and an XXL musical spectacle, the highly mediatized Halftime Show. With commercials selling for $8 million per 30 seconds, as well as the exceptional presence of Donald Trump, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, the event on Sunday February 8, broadcast by Fox, promises to be nothing short of HUGE!
Sport, show, stars.
The Romans, with their “Panem et Circenses ” (bread and circuses ), couldn’t have done it better.
The Super Bowl,the championship final organized by the all-powerful American Football League (NFL) since 1966, has established itself both on the field and in American homes, becoming the most watched sporting event in the United States.
In 2024, the duel between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers attracted an average of 123.4 million viewers. So much so, in fact, that the previous edition set a new audience record.
In addition to the match between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, the 59th Super Bowl, live from New Orleans, promises to exceed all expectations…On the program: the show by rapper Kendrick Lamar, a Donald Trump breaking with American tradition to watch the event from the stadium, as well as the presence of Taylor Swift to encourage her boyfriend Travis Kelce, against a backdrop of rumors of a marriage proposal.
The event will be broadcast by the Fox network live from the Superdome, the New Orleans Saints’ stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana.
An 83,000-seat stadium
To host the 59th Super Bowl (Super Bowl LIX), the NFL has set its sights on the Caesars Superdome or Superdome Saints stadium in New Orleans.
Designed after the Astrodome in Houston, the Caesars Superdome was inaugurated in 1975. With its 5.3 hectares of steel structure, it is the largest sports and entertainment venue in the United States.
The largest enclosed sports arena in the world at the time of its opening, the Superdome, as it is more commonly known, has a capacity of 83,000 seats.
This architectural marvel is well known to Super Bowl fans, as it has already hosted the event seven times: in 1978, 1981, 1986, 1990, 1997, 2002 and 2013. The 2025 edition will therefore be its eighth appearance.
The Superdome is also known for having accommodated 30,000 refugees during the terrible hurricane Katrina in 2005, which also damaged its roof, which reaches a height of 83 meters.
8 million dollars… for 30 seconds
According to Sports Business Journal, the Fox network, which is broadcasting the 59th Super Bowl this February 8, has managed to sell at least 10 30-second ads at $8 million each.
Two years ago, Fox also presented the Super Bowl. That year, the same duration was billed at $6.5 million. Despite the seemingly prohibitive cost, the network generated $600 million in advertising revenues.
By way of comparison, the first Super Bowl in 1967 charged $42,500 for a 30-second spot.
If brands are rushing to air commercials with star-studded casts and heartfelt punchlines, it’s far more to demonstrate their creativity and create a special emotional bond with their audience.
123.7 million spectators in 2024
This 59th Super Bowl coincides with an ever-increasing appetite among the general public for live sporting events, which are often enjoyed by families, both in the stands and from the comfort of their sofas. For the participating brands, it is therefore a question of reaching a diverse audience, whose interest goes far beyond the sporting match itself.
The 2024 Super Bowl attracted 123.7 million viewers, including 120.3 million on CBS alone, the official broadcaster. The program became the most watched of all time on American soil.
A showman with 17 Grammy Awards
Apart from the sporting appeal of the event,the Super Bowl attracts an ever-growing audience, eager to see the performance of the guest artist for each edition of the Super Bowl Halftime.
After Usher, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry and Beyonce, it’s rapper Kendrick Lamar, the first artist outside jazz and classical music to hold a Pulitzer Prize (2018), who is scheduled to perform. Also winner of 17 Grammy Awards, Kendrick Lamar has just released GNX, his sixth studio album to critical and public acclaim, which will enliven this fateful musical moment. His single “Not Like Us”, in which the rapper settles the score with his former friend Drake, earned him five awards at the 2025 Grammy Awards: “Record of the Year”, “Best Rap Performance”, “Best Rap Song”, “Best Music Video” and “Song of the Year”.
Known for his hard-hitting sounds, conceptual sonorities and pyrotechnic outbursts, Kendrick Lamar is set to share the stage with singer SZA.
This isn’t the American rapper’s first Super Bowl, ashe has already taken part in the event with a quartet of other hip-hop superstars in 2022: Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Mary J. Blige.
The bride of America and the quarterback
But while the show is undeniably on the field, Super Bowl 2025 also promises to create a buzz in the stands.
Taylor Swift will be on hand to support her boyfriend Travis Kelce, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. The pop megastar has just returned from a 149-date marathon world tour. There’s no doubt that her presence will motivate the American soccer star for her fifth championship appearance and – who knows? – a third consecutive title.
Two million more female supporters
At the end of September 2024, the woman affectionately nicknamed Tay Tay by her fans was first spotted in the stands for a match between the Chiefs and the Chicago Bears. Since then, her presence has had a beneficial effect on the female audience, according to Front Office Sports. A total of 2 million women, galvanized by Taylor Swift’s presence in the audience, began to follow matches involving the Chiefs. Audiences were up among teenage girls aged 12 to 17 (+53%), women aged 18 to 24 (+24%) and those aged 35 and over (+34%).
And ahead of the Halftime Show 2024, a Lending Tree survey revealed that 24% of Generation Z and 20% of millennials had indicated their intention to watch the Super Bowl because of Taylor Swift’s presence. Even more edifying, 31% of those surveyed said they supported the Chiefs because of the singer’s association with the Kansas City-based team.
A team valued at 331.5 million dollars
The romance between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce has increased the value of the Chiefs by $331.5 million over the period, boosted by the megastar’s media fascination and the multiplication of mentions of the team in the media.
And the pair are a magnet for advertisers. In 2024, make-up brand NYX (L’Oréal group) paid a premium price for the first time to be part of the Super Bowl celebration.
In 2024, the AFC Conference Final between the Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs drew more than 55 million viewers, a record for a championship game. And that’s not all: following Taylor Swift’s first appearance in the stands, sales of her companion’s jersey soared by 400%. Overall, the megastar generated the equivalent of $331.5 million in advertising exposure for the NFL and the Chiefs team, according to data from Apex Marketing Group relayed by Front Office Sports.
A surprise president in the arena
Another surprise guest will be in the stands of the New Orleans Superdome: Donald Trump.
Breaking with the “Watch Party” tradition of American presidents, who until now have attended the ceremony on television from the White House as much out of sentimentality as security concerns, the 47th President of the United States has expressed his desire to be at the heart of the festivities.
Donald Trump is scheduled to give an exclusive interview to be broadcast on the Fox network during the “Pregame Show”, at around 3 p.m., ending at the kick-off of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles at 6:30 p.m.
39 days after the Bourbon Street attack
The decision to attend the Super Bowl in person promises to be a real headache for the Secret Service, which is responsible for ensuring security. Especially as the ceremony comes 39 days after a truck attack on Bourbon Street by an Islamic State-inspired terrorist killed 14 people. The 1977 John Frankenheimer disaster film Black Sunday, about an investigator’s attempt to prevent an attack on a Goodyear advertising blimp during the sporting event, should have dissuaded him.
An expected polarized duel?
And what about the simultaneous presence of the American president and one of his fiercest opponents in the same stadium? Between them, they could not only unleash the crowds, but also the passions. Let’s not forget that, while Donald Trump is not so much on the outs with the homosexual community (since he reclaimed the Village People’s YMCA as the anthem for his rallies) as he is with transgender people, his recent media outbursts on the subject of immigrants is enough to exasperate the pop megastar, just like his very good friend, Mexican-born singer Selena Gomez. The latter shared her dismay on social networks when her undocumented compatriots were forcefully repatriated at the Mexican border.
As a reminder, in 2020, Taylor Swift sided with Joe Biden, accusing the current occupant of the White House of having “fanned the flames of white supremacism and racism throughout his [first] term”.
Featured photo: © Rodion Kutsaiev/Unsplash
