The New York City Economic Tracker: February 3, 2025

The New York City Economy Tracker is a joint project between Investopedia and NY1, using publicly available data to evaluate the economic health of the city across a variety of metrics.

For the week of February 3, 2025, we’re looking at the money behind Super Bowl LIX, and how much advertisers and consumers are spending on the big game.

The Average Consumer Watching on TV Will Spend $91 On Super Bowl

The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles will meet for the second time in three years this Sunday and face off at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans. In its 59th edition, the Super Bowl has consistently become one of the most viewed television programs in the US for the past 40 years. Massive viewership for the big game also means big money, with tickets, advertising, average spending per person, and players’ incentives all factoring into the bottom line. 

The first is the cost of attending the game itself. Just to get into Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans is $4,470 on average per ticket for the least expensive options on secondary market resellers like StubHub, SeatGeek, and TicketMaster. The most expensive ticket on the same sites was up to an average of $56,593 each. 

However, only about 75,000 people will be able to watch the game in person this weekend. The other tens of millions viewing it will be watching on TV, most likely from home—and they plan on spending money on the game, too. According to a survey from the National Retail Federation, consumers this year are set to spend about $91.58 each on items for the Super Bowl, a 6.4% increase from last year’s game. That spending is mostly going to food and beverages with about 81% of consumers saying they are spending some money on it for the Super Bowl. About 14% of respondents said they would be spending on team apparel and accessories, with 10% saying they would buy a new TV for the big game. 

The game isn’t just lucrative for in-person viewers—advertisers are shelling out millions of dollars for commercials. In fact, the anticipated cost of a 30 second ad spot during the game this year is expected to touch $8 million a price that has almost quadrupled in the last 25 years. According to research from Kantar, Super Bowl ads delivered an average return on investment of $4.60 per dollar spent.

Broadcasting Rights and Players’ Incentives

Lofty advertising prices make sense when you put into perspective how much Fox—the broadcaster of the Super Bowl this year—paid for exclusive rights. The 11-year deal struck between Fox and the NFL will run through 2033 and was for over $2 billion dollars annually for the 2023, 2025, 2029, and 2033 Super Bowls, most NFC playoff games, as well as some Sunday NFL games and other properties.

It’s not just fans, broadcasters, and advertisers that are spending or receiving money—the players in the game are financially rewarded by the NFL, too. Aside from their salary and any incentive bonuses attached to their individual contracts, the league pays each player on the losing team $96,000 and each player on the winning team $171,000 according to the league’s latest collective bargaining agreement.