2017 Super Bowl Final: New England Patriots vs Atlanta Falcons

By: Jack Flannigan

Intern at Henman Communications

Every February, the sporting world is overtaken with excitement over the Super Bowl. This season, the finale of the American Football season comes to a head at the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas in front of 72,000 people plus the 160 million or so people worldwide that will be watching in their living rooms.

The two teams competing for the treasured Vince Lombardi Trophy this year are the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons. By advancing to play in Super Bowl LI (51) the Patriots have earned a record 9th Super Bowl appearance and their seventh in the last 16 years under star player Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick.

For the Atlanta Falcons, however, it is more of a surprising appearance in the final, and shows a dramatic upturn in their recent fortunes having failed to qualify for the NFL playoffs in any of the last three seasons.

This game is only the second time that the Falcons have been to the Super Bowl in their history, with the other coming against the Denver Broncos in 1999, a game that they went on to lose.

Like with many sporting events in the modern world, Super Bowl 51 will be just as much about the technology and advertising as it is the game on the pitch.

The broadcasting rights in the States for Super Bowl 51 were won by Fox Sports, who made an announcement earlier in the year that they are going to introduce a first-person perspective for replays that will enable the viewer at home to experience the game from pitch level.

Alongside this, Fox also announced that they have set the base rate at $5 million per 30 seconds of any commercials that will be played before, during or after the Super Bowl.

When everyone sits down to watch Super Bowl 51 later today, watching Tom Brady running his plays won’t be your only source of entertainment. Snickers will be trying to convince you that “you are not you if you’re hungry”, Nintendo will be trying to sell you their latest video games console and long standing Super Bowl partner Budweiser will be trying to sell you their beer.

The commercialisation of the Super Bowl is, in part, what makes it such an enjoyable occasion and keeps people interested.

Whilst the FIFA World Cup Final may have the Super Bowl beat for the size of audience, when watching the World Cup Final, you are not left wondering what type of ads will be showing during the half time break, whereas as NFL UK Director, Alistair Kirkwood explains: “During the Super Bowl, you actually have a family audience where there are groups of people enjoying the game but also waiting to see the ads. You’ve got star power, you’ve got buzz and I can’t think of another example from a commercial perspective where the ads are as anticipated as the event.”

However, it does beg the question, is the Super Bowl over commercialised?

Maybe that is something to think about when you tune into Fox Sports in America or are trying to stay awake at 3am tomorrow morning watching the game in the UK.

It should be a very interesting game that could set many records both on and off the pitch.

New York Patriots vs Atlanta Falcons live on BBC One or Sky Sports from 23:20 GMT.

About Henman Communications

Henman Communications creates insight-based PR and digital marketing campaigns that connect brands with their audiences via PR, content, social, digital and experiential marketing channels.

Since launching in 2003, Henman Communications has delivered creative PR activation campaigns for some of the world’s largest brands, rights holders and national governing bodies.

We directly engage with audiences that our clients want to reach, and deliver the right messaging, to the right audience, at the right time. Our focus is reaching the people our clients are trying to reach: customers, partners, their industry, their employees, local communities, national and local media, key influencers and other wider stakeholders or key influencers.

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