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An Olympic bite on ad sales
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December 18, 2001: 11:18 a.m. ET
Patriotic interest in Winter Olympics is bad news for Super Bowl ads.
A twice weekly column by Staff Writer Chris Isidore
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A surge of patriotism may end up being bad news for that great all-American sporting event, the Super Bowl.
The Feb. 3 game is still likely to be the most-watched television event of the year. But with the Winter Olympics set to start less than a week later in Salt Lake City, some advertisers are shifting their ad dollars to what they think could be a celebration of both sport and national pride.
"Neither one is cheap," said Tony Fouladpour, spokesman for Volkswagen of America, one of the advertisers who bought time on the Super Bowl last year but will pass for the Olympics this year. "We felt the Olympics is a better buy this year. From a standpoint of enthusiasm for the U.S. team, we think it'll be higher than ever, that people's interest will be heightened this year."
NBC, a unit of General Electric Co. (GE: Research, Estimates), says it has sold 94 percent of available time for more than two weeks of Olympic coverage, while Fox Sports has sold only 75 to 80 percent of the time available on the Super Bowl. Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. (FOX: Research, Estimates), also cut the length of the pre-game show to five hours from seven-and-half hours when it last had the game two years ago.
"A couple of years ago, someone asked about a seven-and-a-half hour pre-game, I remember our executive producer said, 'If they can sell it, we can produce it,'" said Fox Sports spokesman Lou D'Ermilio. "Now we think it's smarter to tighten up the inventory, given [the] softness in the market place."
D'Ermilio says Fox believes the weak advertising market overall is the reason for ad sales to date rather than competition from the Olympics.
"We're probably half a step behind where CBS was last year," he said. "Where we are right now is more a product of the overall softness in the ad market than any other factor."
Ad buyers agree that the soft market is a major factor for the networks on all their high-profile programs, and may leave both Fox and NBC giving discounts to sell the final spots at less attractive times, such as during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, when the game is often out of hand, or during the less popular sports in the Olympics.
"In a strong economic year, I think it (competition between the events) would still be a conversation," said Tim Spengler, director of national broadcast for media buyer Initiative Media North America. "This year it's a question if they'll sell all the inventory they have."
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The high cost of time on the Super Bowl, likely to be $2 million or more for a 30-second spot, is driving some buyers to look at the Olympics, where a 30-second prime-time spot goes for about $600,000. Computer consultant Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS: Research, Estimates) bought a single 60-second spot on the Super Bowl the last two years. This year it is skipping the Super Bowl and buying an Olympic campaign that will give it 50 spots over the course of the games.
"The reason we went with the Super Bowl was to get the world's attention and tell them who we are. Now we need to give more specifics on what we do," said LaWanda Burrell, EDS vice president of global advertising. "If there hadn't been an Olympics, we would have weighed going back to the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is something we'll definitely weigh in the future."
D'Ermilio is still predicting a 40 rating for the Super Bowl, more than twice the average rating for the Olympics. While NBC spokesman Kevin Sullivan won't say what NBC is promising advertisers this time, media buyers are saying they're looking for a 17 or 18 rating, which would be up from both the 13.8 average rating in the 2000 summer games from Sydney, Australia, and 16.8 rating for the winter games from Nagano, Japan, four years ago.
Click here for CNNSI.com's Olympic coverage
NBC was left with disappointing ratings for the 2000 games when most of the events were carried on tape delay to the U.S. market due to the time difference. That forced the network to make refunds to many advertisers as a result. But media buyers say they don't think the network and the games will have trouble attracting viewers this time around.
"They're promising very good numbers that they have a better-than-even shot to obtain," said Andrew Donchin, director of national broadcast for Carat USA, a media buying agency. "The patriotic swell of the country I think will help the numbers." 
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