Return Of The King: A-B Tops '07 Sports Advertisers

Anheuser-Busch (A-B) has regained its position as the sports ad spending king, one year after being dethroned by Chevrolet. According to data compiled for SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily by Nielsen Monitor-Plus, the St. Louis-based brewer spent an estimated $218M for advertising during sports programming in '07, With the exception of '06, A-B has been No. 1 every year since at least '94, when Nielsen began tracking such data. A-B was able to jump back on top despite a 13.6% decrease in its sports spending compared with '06. Chevrolet, which spent $173M as the second-ranked advertiser, cut its spending by more than a third. The double-digit decreases for A-B and Chevrolet were fueled in part by a lack of the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup last year. Other IOC TOP sponsors, USOC backers and FIFA corporate partners also posted notable drops compared with their spending in '06, an Olympic and World Cup year. The following lists the top 15 sports advertisers from '07. See this week's issue of SportsBusiness Journal for the complete top 50 ranking (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/10 issue).

NOTES: Spending information is based on standard rate card prices for specific national and regional broadcasts, multiplied by the length of time a particular ad aired. Statistical anomalies are due to rounding.