Party Like a Rockstar: Celebrities Use the Superbowl to Raise Money and PARTY

As with the popularity and the name power of celebrities, sporting events are a great way to draw attention and exposure to any given fundraising initiative. The most popular event, because it typically draws the largest crowds, I would think, is the Super Bowl. Other similar events which tend to host an array of charity events include; (but this list is, by no means, official or extensive as it is just off the top of my head), NBA, NHL and MLB All-Star weekends, the three major horse races (Preakness, Kentucky Derby, and Belmont), and others. I just know that we always read about the long lists of celebrities who attend the Super Bowl and its corresponding events, both for and not for profit.

Celebrities are using the Super Bowl to raise money too. According to the blog, Look to the Stars: The World of Celebrity Giving, actor Ashton Kutcher hosted a party in Tampa, FL to raise money for the Giving Back Fund during this past year’s Super Bowl weekend. Upon digging further into the whereabouts of this event, The Giving Back Fund’s website was able to provide all details. American Idol winner, Jordin Sparks, hosted two events during Super Bowl week in Tampa as part of her 2nd Annual Jordin Sparks Experience Charity Event. The New York Times article, Is Star Power Enough to Sell Beer in Hard Times? Two Brewers Hope So, reports that Conan O’Brien donated his fees from his appearances in an Anheuser-Busch Super Bowl commercial to The Fresh Air Fund.

Corporations jump on the Super Bowl bandwagon with their marketing as well: Pittsburgh-based FedEx Ground and the Pittsburgh Steelers created the Towels for Troops campaign in conjunction with Military Connections. "FedEx shipped thousands of Terrible Towels to Steelers fans who were serving in the military overseas." FedEx is a Pittsburgh Steelers corporate partner but it seems they build much of their campaign, both the charitable component and promotional, around the Super Bowl each year…especially when the Steelers are playing in the Super Bowl, as they did this year!

According to NFL.com’s Sponsor section, before the Super Bowl, Campbell's Chunky soups ran a “Click for Cans” Campaign. Fans were asked to "click" their team to victory on the Campbell's site. Campbell's Chunky soup and the NFL “donated 18,000 cans of soup to the winning team's local Feeding America food bank.” The Green Bay Packers won the contest but the NFL and Campbell’s reported that they far exceeded their expectations with the success of that campaign.

There was a publicized website available prior to the Super Bowl this year, which posted a schedule of all Super Bowl events, parties, etc. Included in that list, was a celebrity charity golf tournament wherein the celebrities could play for the charity of their choice, (wow, now they can play golf and then choose where to donate the money but they were forced to donate it!), a “Band Together” hosted by former NFL star Jerry Wunsch benefiting the Wunsch Family Foundation (yet, interestingly enough, just as with most of these events, I had a VERY difficult time finding information about the Wunsch Foundation and what, if anything specific, it benefited), and then you will read on and on to find that all “galas,” “bashes,” parties, extravaganzas, etc. associated with Super Bowl weekend all had SOME tie to charity. I guess this was a sneaky way for the foundations to attract the masses to their events and, more so, to draw sponsors for the event in order to defray some of the enormous budgets on which they inevitably operate. For a complete list from this past Super Bowl, click on this link.

My point is that, just as with many of the issues we tackle in these discussions about celebrities’ involvement in the community and in ‘giving back’ it is, yet again, clearly apparent that there is reason to question their motivation. Many use the excuse of the Super Bowl to host extravagant parties and then create some charitable component to justify the obnoxious price tag of the tickets for these events. In some cases, as it seems from various reports on Ashton Kutcher’s party, the celebrities really DO have a sincere tie to the cause and work hard, year-round, to support and promote that cause. In this case, they just use the Super Bowl as a way to tap into the masses and have MUCH better turnouts for the events. There was even an article about how celebrities were going “head to head” to fight for the audiences when charity events during Super Bowl Weekend took place at the same time. This is a good problem to have, right?! So many fans and potential donors flock together in one city every year for Super Bowl Weekend. They all want to attend the ‘hottest’ events. When a celebrity like Kevin Costner hosts a charity event at the exact same time as Ashton Kutcher (where, by association, you KNOW you are also paying to go see Demi Moore!), IF you can afford to pay the whopping $1,000 ticket prices, how do you decide which celebrity event to attend?

It seems there is an abundance of celebrity charity events surrounding Super Bowl Weekend and All-Star Weekends each year. It is up to the public to choose which events they wish to attend, which they can afford to attend and, hopefully, which charitable cause is most appealing. The only remaining question, on that note, is whether or not event-hoppers choose which events to attend based on the charitable cause to which it is associated or based on the celebrity hosts and attendees. This would be a very interesting study to conduct but the only way to do so is to attend next year’s Super Bowl myself, and poll the fans attending each event! Stay tuned…in February, 2010!

Posted by Stephanie Cantor