Super Bowl 50 Ads: Cost Growth Far Outpacing Stock Market, Price Has Skyrocketed In Past Decade

We might not be able to predict who'll win the Super Bowl, but if history is any indicator, we can be certain about one stat from the big game: The television ads will cost more. Super Bowl airtime is exclusive property, and Forbes pointed out Friday that the ads in the major TV event far outpace the stock market in value growth.

Compared with the S&P 500, a bellwether U.S. stock market index, a Super Bowl ad is more valuable by a considerable margin. A 30-second spot on CBS' broadcast of Super Bowl 50, scheduled for Feb. 7 at the San Francisco 49ers Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, costs about $5 million, an 8.7 percent increase from last year, when NBC had the broadcast rights. Since the Super Bowl's inception in 1967, advertisements have increased in value by 12,500 percent, according to Forbes. By comparison, the S&P 500 has increased some 2,140 percent over the same time period, Forbes also pointed out.

Last year, about 114 million people watched the Super Bowl, and with a continued massive TV audience, ad rates for the Super Bowl have increased some 76 percent over the last decade alone, according to USA Today. While prices have skyrocketed, it's unclear if Super Bowl ads are worth the steep price. An ad executive wrote in Forbes that the ads are actually "nation’s biggest bargain," while a recent study said that 80 percent of Super Bowl advertisements don't help sales. Nonetheless, CBS said that they had little trouble selling the pricey pieces of television real estate.

"The demand for the Super Bowl has been extraordinary," CBS CEO Les Moonves said during a conference last month, via USA Today. "We've sold most of the spots for very, very high prices."

A number of advertisers have already begun to post their spots or partial teasers to YouTube, International Business Times previously reported. Companies are looking to get the most bang for their buck, and YouTube said commercials posted online before the big game garner 2.2 times more views by Monday morning than those posted after it has already begun.

Anheuser Busch, for instance, has posted a Bud Light teaser featuring comedians Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen. "For us this is extremely important because we use the Super Bowl to make statements about our brands, to kick off the year with a vengeance,'' Jorn Socquet, Anheuser Busch’s vice president of marketing, said Thursday at a media preview.

The Forbes news report cited an Ad Age story.