Joel Price Blog

As the NFL prepares for Super Bowl XLI, Nielsen Media Research has combined data on television ratings, advertising expenditures, Internet measurement, album sales, box-office receipts, consumer and lifestyle information of NFL fans in Indianapolis and Chicago, NFL merchandise and retail sales, consumer segmentation and marketing, and comprehensive market research.

Web Becomes Integral part of Super Bowl Ad Campaigns

In 2006, Super Bowl advertisers saw an impressive 55 percent increase in their Web traffic on the day after the big game, from 7.9 million unique visitors on Super Bowl Sunday to 12.1 million on Monday (see Table 1).

Fidelity Investments was the fastest growing Web site day over day, increasing 203 percent. Overstock.com ranked No. 2 with a 145 percent increase, and Expedia rounded out the top three, growing 141 percent from Sunday to Monday.

Leading up to the Super Bowl, fans go online to check out stats and prepare for armchair quarterbacking. In the week ending February 5, 2006, Superbowl.com had a unique audience of 2.3 million, a 26 percent increase over Super Bowl week in 2005. NFL.com and NFL Team Sites had 2.0 million unique visitors each during that same week in 2006, a 46 and 17 percent year-over- year increase, respectively.

Buzz on the Internet

Among total blog posts related to 2007 Super Bowl advertising, Britney Spear’s ex, Kevin Federline – also known as “K-Fed” – is leading the discussion thanks to his recently announced role as pitchman for Nationwide Insurance. In the seven-day period ending January 21, 2007, K-Fed buzz around Super Bowl advertising represented 26% of all blog conversations related to Super Bowl advertising, and fully 49% on January 17.

Read the complete release. (PDF with Charts and Tables)

Indianapolis Colts are pre-selling a Cap and t-shirt on their official online store. Of course the items won’t ship unless the Colts are victorious. Is this presumptuous or good business? (Full disclosure: I work for the Chargers who use the same online store vendor, eSports Partners, who the Colts use.)

Update: It appears the items have been yanked. The page now says “Sorry Category No Longer Active!”

The NFL will begin selling highlight packages from Super Bowl XLI via Apple’s iTunes Music store beginning Monday Feb. 5, the day after the big game.

“NFL highlights from the regular season and playoffs have been a huge hit on iTunes,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We’re thrilled to cap off the season by giving fans the ability to download highlights from this year’s Super Bowl along with classic videos chronicling the greatest teams over the past years.” (via Washington Times)

B&H sells a variety of pre-packaged podcasting kits. They’re inexpensive all-in-one solutions to get up and running quickly. I don’t get commissions and I’m not necessarily recommending B&H. This is simply for those team’s that want to do podcasting but don’t know where to start.

Internet CDN service Akamai has posted it’s Net Usage Index for Advertising in preparation for the Super Bowl on February 4th.

Akamai also keeps a Net Usage Index for News which allows anyone to see “in real-time the impact of current events on online media consumption.” (Thanks, Matt!)

Related:

Traffic Trends During the 2006 Super Bowl

CBS deploying some 500 staffers and 47 HD cameras to create the best television experience. Article has one little error. It refers to a Colts-Chargers replay. I think it should read Patriots not Chargers. I digress.

No Trick Plays

Although the biggest NFL game of the year is often a place for networks to introduce the latest production gizmos, for Super Bowl XLI, CBS is keeping it simple. That is, if deploying some 500 staffers, positioning 47 HD cameras and replacing the lights at Miami’s Dolphin Stadium is keeping it simple.

Related:

High Tech Sports 

Testing out a new “web 2.0” site called Twitter. It’s is a nifty little site that allows you to tell everyone in the world what you’re doing and when. I have ideas on how to use this for Chargers.com and will test it at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii next week. The feature I will be using most is text updates that allow you to post via SMS even though it allows you to post from their site I don’t see me browsing over to Twitter every time I want to say some nonsense.

heck it out:

http://twitter.com/chargers

February 1st NASCAR.com will launch with a new look, first time since and a application called RaceView.

The redesign also marks the launch of the Infield Community on NASCAR.COM, a unique online social gathering space for NASCAR fans to interact.

“The RaceView application represents the first-ever live rendering of a major sporting event in 3-D, providing fans the most dynamic interactive experience ever developed,” said Hank Adams, CEO, Sportvision.

“RaceView is at the forefront of a new wave of convergence applications that will change the way fans interact with and watch with their sport.”

Story here.

Yes, I am a switcher. I have finally moved back into the Apple realm by purchasing a MacBook Pro! I did this about 7 years ago in the pre OSX days and quickly switched back to my trusty XP machine. However, I am again ready to take the pludge and this time I won’t regret it one bit. At least I hope so. We shall see.

My MacBook Pro Specs

2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM-2×1GB
160GB Serial ATA Drive@5400rpm
15″ Glossy Widescreen Display
SuperDrive 6X

I was upsold

Mighty Mouse
iWork
Final Cut Express
HP Printer (Free w/ Rebate)