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Significant Digits For Monday, Feb. 2, 2015

You’re reading the special Super Bowl edition of Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, subscribe.

4 cents per viewer

With an estimated cost of $4.5 million for a 30-second Super Bowl advertisement and more than 112 million people projected to watch the broadcast, advertisers with a 30-second spot paid about 4 cents per viewer — far more than the 2.5 cents per viewer that advertisers pay for a typical TV spot. [The Washington Post]

$12

Cost of a draft beer at University of Phoenix Stadium. Knowing that, I’m OK with Nate’s decision not to bring me along to the game. [SB Nation]

37 completions

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had a banner night (other than those two interceptions), completing 37 of 50 attempted passes and throwing for 328 yards, four touchdowns and the game’s MVP award. [The New York Times]

44 percent

One of the most talked-about TV ads — besides the one in which Nationwide gamed out all the ways to accidentally kill a kid — was the one Budweiser used to distance itself from the namby-pamby world of craft beer and play up its roots as the crappy beer of the common man. This creative direction shouldn’t be shocking for a brewer that recently learned 44 percent of drinkers aged 21 to 27 have never tried Budweiser. [Business Insider]

57.5 percent

The game effectively ended when the Seahawks — with a yard to go for a go-ahead touchdown — threw a pass that the Patriots intercepted. Many slightly-later-on-Sunday-evening quarterbacks second-guessed this play call, suggesting that a run would have been a safer option. During the regular season, 57.5 percent of rushing plays from the opponent’s 1-yard line resulted in a touchdown. [FiveThirtyEight]

71 ads

Perhaps you or someone you know was the person at the party who was there only to take in TV commercials. That’s cool: to each their own. NBC aired 71 unique national ads. [Business Insider]

73-45

Final score of the Puppy Bowl, the annual (sham) event aired by Animal Planet, which I really need to stop gambling on at this point. Cara, a Shih Tzu puppy, was named game MVP. Presumably many specialized vacuums were sold. [IGN]

98 seconds

Remember Ballghazi? As a person who dislikes the New England Patriots, I sure do. It turns out the attempts to reconstruct events are getting rather serious: Investigators are focusing on a 98-second window during which a worker took 24 game-day footballs into a restroom. Has this story gone on too long? Yes. Is the evidence conspiratorial and absurd? Of course. Is it funny, in a juvenile way, that grown adults are arguing over the size of balls? Probably. But is there a long offseason coming up? Damn right, and we’ll all need something to talk about. [NFL.com]

$921

Many speculators use the Super Bowl as an opportunity to make a quick buck. In recent years, people who sold short tickets on secondary sites could profit from an average price fall of $921 in the two weeks prior to the delivery date to buyers. That did not happen this year, leading to substantial chaos on the secondary markets for tickets. [The Atlantic]

$12 billion

Counting all the booze, food, electronics and merchandise, the National Retail Federation estimates Americans spent more than $12 billion on the game. [The Week]

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