Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith will be the only political animals on FOX Super Bowl Sunday.
With Super Tuesday a mere forty-eight hours after Super Bowl Sunday, the six remaining presidential candidates have not bought advertising during the biggest sporting event of the year.
Originally, reports said FOX would bar presidential campaigns from having ads during the Super Bowl, thanks to equal time laws. FOX could not provide equal opportunities to all candidates, because “ad time in the Super Bowl is essentially sold out.” Even if a spot did open up, FOX would still not allow a candiate to buy time during the game, “citing an FCC ruling that a network can reasonably refuse to sell political time in ‘unique, one-time-only’ broadcasts where equal ad time can?t be offered to all candidates.”
News Corp. has denied those reports, saying “no campaign … ever seriously approached Fox to discuss the possibility” of buying ads during the most watched television program of the year.
Part of that has to do with Super Bowl ads running a price tag of over $2.7 million dollars. With several campaigns beginning to exhaust their funds, it would not be surprising if candidates shied away from what amounts to an uneconomical move. Some are attempting other ways of getting their voices heard on Super Bowl Sunday; supporters of Ron Paul, the proverbial 16th seed of presidential candidates, are raising money to purchase ad time on local affiliates during the game.
Perhaps the lack of political ads during the Super Bowl is a good thing; at least, viewers will not be treated to this remake of a famous Super Bowl ad on Sunday:
