The crew at FOX Chattanooga was pulling hard for the Titans in the AFC Championship game a couple of weeks ago, and they had thousands of good reasons for their enthusiasm.
“If the Titans had gone [to the Super Bowl], it would have been double money and double audience,” said Todd Ricke, the general manager of the local FOX station as well as WTVC NewsChannel 9. “That local fan base is huge. It would have pressed the envelope a little bit.”
Super Bowl advertisements are arguably as big a draw as the game itself, and the famously multimillion-dollar national time slots don’t just nab the big names. Local advertisers also pick up cheaper pieces of that coveted airtime to reach audiences closer to home. Ricke said all of the roughly dozen 30-second spots he had available for local advertisers are full.
“It’s an expensive venture for any advertiser to take on, but the thing about the Super Bowl is people turn it on at 11 a.m. and leave it on all day,” Ricke said. “The price goes up based on audience levels, so there’s a place for everybody to be.”
Contributed photo / Todd Ricke is general manager for Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.The 2019 Super Bowl was watched by 98.2 million viewers in the United States, while the most-watched Super Bowl in history was the 2015 match-up between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. A record 114.4 million viewers tuned into that game, according to Statista.com.