Shall We up the Ante

In an article posted by adage.com the price of next year's Super Bowl commercial has official gone up.  The television network who has the Super Bowl is NBC.  NBC is reportedly asking for 3.5 million dollars for 30 seconds of air time.  This is going to be record setting if advertisiers are going to have to pay up to 3.5 million dollars for air time during the big game.  In recent years according to the article the cost of the commercials has either been at 3 million dollars or just right below it.   Is this a smart move on NBC's behalf ?





At this time I do not think that this is a wise move on NBC behalf to test the market to see if they could raise their revenue by asking for a higher selling point on its commercials.  First point that must be made is the issue of wheter or not the NFL is going to be in a lockout. If the league is in a lockout there may not be a season to play for. NBC cannot go into this poker game with the cards it is dealt with until the river is shown. After the river cards are shown then they should bet.  The bet for NBC would be they would be seeing how the NFL season is playing out and if lady be luck the two most talked about teams of the season are going to playoffs with the chance to play in Super Bowl. Also the US economy is still at a state of fluctuation.  Some companies may be hesitant to put and ad for such a hefty price and other companies have negotiated deals with the Super Bowl committee and are going to stick with the rate that they have. 

NBC can also learn a lesson from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.  Jerry Jones at the beginning of the season claimed that his Cowboys team was the best team in the NFC and would be representative in their home stadium.  As football fans we all know that the Cowboys had horrible season where the head coach was fired mid season and the team fell out of contention not even mid way through the season.  NBC do you want to ante up or wait to see what other players (marketers) are going to offer you and then play your hand ?