January 27, 1997

Paying for Football, Paying for Politics

There are Packers fans and there are Patriots fans. There are Coke drinkers and there are Pepsi drinkers. And when the conversation turns to the politics of campaign reform, there are two distinct and irreconcilable camps: There are those who think "campaigns cost too much" and there are the agnostics, those who are unable to say if there is "too much" spending because they do not know how much is "too much."

An agnostic might, for example, point to yesterday's Super Bowl where a 30-second ad during the game itself cost a cool $1.2 million ($40,000 per second). The entire broadcast -- pre-game show, game, and post-game show -- ran for much of the afternoon and evening and earned Fox Television more than $100 million.

Super Bowl ads are the most expensive advertising buys in television, but do they cost "too much"? The best minds in marketing obviously don't think so; advertisers leaped at the chance to spend more than $100 million pitching their wares to more than 100 million American viewers.

A 30-Second Super Bowl Ad Could Buy Two and One-Half Campaigns for the House. $1.2 million is a fair chunk of change. For the Super Bowl, it bought 30 seconds of air time. In politics, $1.2 million would have paid for two and one-half races for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in the 1996 elections (where the average Republican or Democrat who ran in the general election spent about $464,000).

Total Super Bowl Ad Revenues About Equal Spending in All Democratic Senate Campaigns. In 1996, the 34 Democrats who ran campaigns for the United States Senate spent $106.5 million, or about what Fox Television earned yesterday on the Super Bowl. Is that too much? Those Democratic candidates probably don't think so (their 34 Republican opponents outspent them by $7 million). (Remember that the Super Bowl number is for purchases of television advertising time only, while the Senate number is for disbursements of all kinds -- ad purchases for television, radio, and newspapers; ad production; salaries and rent; printing and postage; bunting and bumper stickers.)

In a vast, populous Republic -- where the finest minds in business think it advantageous to spend more than $100 million buying television ads for a football game -- is $106.5 million too much to spend trying to elect Democrats to the United States Senate?

In a vast, populous Republic -- where the finest minds in business think it advantageous to spend $1.2 million for 30 seconds of television time during a football game -- is $1.3 million too much to spend for more than two congressional campaigns?

Persons who think "campaigns cost too much" seem to think so.

Wednesday of last week, the Television Bureau of Advertising announced that all candidates (presidential, congressional, state, county, and local) and all political parties spent $400 million on television advertising in 1996. Is that "too much" spending on politics in a country of 265 million people that spent more than $100 million on television advertising during a football broadcast?

The agnostic finds it impossible to say.

[Data on advertising costs are taken from public sources and were confirmed by the National Football League. Data on costs of Senate and House campaigns are taken from published information of the Federal Election Commission. FEC data are not final but are as reported through Nov. 25, 1996.]