The Super Bowl appears to be doing just fine without General Motors.
CBS has sold more than half of its ad allotment for the 2013 Super Bowl, according to Advertising Age, and the early buys are being driven by other car manufacturers. (The story did not name them, however.)
After pulling its Facebook ads, GM raised more eyebrows by skipping Super Bowl advertising for next year and officially announcing Thursday morning that its Chevy division sealed a sponsorship deal with British soccer dynasty Manchester United.
But America's biggest game has already found plenty of other players to spend up to $3.8 million for 30 seconds, including a few unnamed Hollywood movies. The price is going up. The 2011 game on Fox averaged $3 million per 30 seconds and the 2012 game on NBC averaged $3.5 million.
John Bogusz, vice president for sports sales and marketing at CBS, told AdAge that the percentage of filled ad space could climb to 80 within a few weeks. Last year in early June, NBC had more than 65 percent of its Super Bowl ad roster completed for the 2012 game, according to TVWeek.com.
So Super worriers can exhale. The nation's annual orgy of sporting and commercial excess appears to still be well-represented by the deep-pocketed looking to derail us from our bathroom breaks.
It just won't be GM.