The Super Bowl is famously identified for its commercials. It could be the most-watched sporting occasion within the United States, however some folks watch the massive sport only for the advertisements. The commercials aren’t the one facet of the National Football League’s championship sport that receives company sponsorship: The halftime present is now sponsored by Apple Music, after a lengthy relationship with Pepsi got here to a detailed.
But there’s one other company Super Bowl custom that has fallen by the wayside lately: Awarding a brand new automobile to the sport’s most useful participant, a ritual that ended seven years in the past. It initially started when General Motors awarded Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr a model new Corvette after the primary Super Bowl in 1967. Starr gained a second Corvette in 1968. The GM custom continued till 2015 when Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots, gained a Chevrolet Colorado. Brady instantly gave the truck away to a teammate.
After 2015, Hyundai took over from General Motors because the official automobile companion of the National Football League. The Korean automaker wasn’t so eager on handing out free automobiles, placing an finish to the Super Bowl giveaway and solely as soon as handing out a pair of Genesis coupes to the MVPs of the Pro Bowl.
According to Automotive News, Hyundai discovered extra worth in sponsoring groups and broadcasts than it did handing out automobiles. Hyundai Motor America chief advertising officer Dean Evans mentioned in 2018, “you can buy the sponsorship, and then if you don’t have enough money to run enough TV commercials, you almost don’t look like the sponsor.”
It is smart for automobile producers to purchase advert time on tv — the automaker absolutely controls these 30 seconds. When a automobile firm offers a automobile to a well-known athlete, the athlete may ditch their new automobile in a matter of days, generally publicly — placing a unfavorable spin on one thing the automaker hoped would give some celeb shine to its product.
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Hyundai ended its partnership with the National Football League in 2019. No automaker has taken up the mantle since.
Source: jalopnik.com