In this op-ed, Liam Wilson, Mindshare associate strategy director, urges Aussie brands to take a piece of the pie that is the Super Bowl. The coming together of sports fans and pop culture aficionados means a huge audience is available to engage with.
As my beloved Canberra Raiders clinched victory over the New Zealand Warriors in Vegas over the weekend, there were 45,209 fans in Allegiant Stadium witnessing the match, up from 40,746 in 2024. While these numbers might not seem significant year-over-year, this is huge for the NRL as it goes international. Why? Because during the 2024 NRL season, the average stadium attendance was 20,506. With international crowds soaring to over 45,000, that’s doubling crowd numbers in Australia.
Guess who else is expanding their horizons? The NFL, which recently announced they’re coming to Australia in 2026. This isn’t a coincidence that both Australian and American codes are intersecting, but rather years of momentum building towards this very moment — and you need to experience it, to believe it.
As I stepped into a pub on Super Bowl Monday, I honestly expected it would just be me and the friends I was with. Instead, we walked into a packed house with an atmosphere rivalling an AFL grand final or State of Origin decider. This wasn’t just happening at one single pub in Sydney– pubs across Australia had opened their doors early, housing thousands of passionate NFL fans who had taken a sickie to watch the Eagles battle the Chiefs. This wasn’t just event viewing; this was pure sporting passion playing out on a Monday morning in Australia… And a lot of out-of-office messages for sports fans.
The Traditional Super Bowl Narrative
In Australia, the Super Bowl ad circus plays out like clockwork: creatives compete to hot-take the commercials, social media gurus warn about the USD $8M price tag, and System1 calls out brands burning millions of dollars as audiences can’t recall who was behind the ad. Talk about expensive amnesia.
But solely reacting to Super Bowl Sunday’s sporting spectacle misses a crucial shift happening Down Under as we’re not just passive observers of American sports – we’re active participants in a growing phenomenon.
The Half-Time Effect: Where Sport Meets Culture
The Super Bowl represents a unique convergence of interests, particularly evident in the cultural impact during the half-time show. When Kendrick Lamar performed, his Spotify streams surged by 175 per cent, with a corresponding spike in Australian search interest as his beef with Drake hits a new level. In 2024, Usher’s performance was overshadowed by Taylor Swift’s Super Bowl debut supporting Travis Kelce, driving record viewership as Swifties engaged with the game globally. In 2023, Rihanna’s subtle nod to her Fenty Beauty brand during her performance generated millions in brand mentions within seconds.
Drake and Kendrick Lamar Search interest Past 12 months.
Taylor Swift articles fuelling Super Bowl ratings in 2024.
Rihanna’s US$6 million payday from 3 second act.
Americanisation of Australian Sport
The numbers tell a compelling story. According to Channel 7, Super Bowl total TV viewership in Australia has increased by 20 per cent since 2022, reaching record highs of 2.56 million viewers. The NFL reports 6.6 million fans in Australia, a figure that’s set to grow with the Victorian government’s recent agreement to bring official NFL regular season games to the MCG in 2026.
This is just the beginning. State governments, sporting codes, and streaming giants are investing heavily in this market. The NSW government has secured a series of UFC events in Sydney, alongside the Victorian Government signing a deal with the NBA to bring games to Australia. On the streaming front, Foxtel and Kayo continues to offer ESPN content, alongside Disney and ESPN partnering to bring ESPN coverage to Australian Disney+ subscribers.
The Opportunity at Hand
The irony is that while Australian brands vigilantly pursue opportunities within traditional local sporting codes, they’ve largely overlooked the growing influence of American sports. McDonald’s leads Super Bowl brand coverage in Australia, primarily through their partnership with ESPN, which enabled them to create content around the quintessential Australian ‘Maccas run’ moment on game day. What McDonald’s has discovered is an unsaturated media space that delivers a captivated audience.
We’ve also spent years studying how brands play the Super Bowl – we understand the power of pre-campaign teasers in building anticipation and hype, the effectiveness of humour and storytelling, and the potential pitfalls of celebrity plug ins. Yet we haven’t applied these lessons to our own unique Super Bowl Monday phenomenon. While brands can partner with broadcasters of American sports, the most compelling opportunity lies in blending Australian sporting traditions with American sports culture to create truly distinctive experiences.
Lessons for Super Bowl Monday
As an industry, this represents an unmarked touchdown zone ready to be seized. The opportunity exists to engage two distinct audiences: the passionate fans taking sickies to watch Super Bowl Monday at an Aussie pub, and the culturally driven fan who tunes in for the spectacle and water-cooler moments.
It’s time for us as an industry to move beyond merely reacting to Super Bowl Sunday and start proactively planning for Super Bowl Monday. As American sports continue their expansion into Australian culture, brands that recognise and act on this shift early will gain a disproportionate advantage in this evolving landscape.
The playbook is there. The audience is growing. The only question is: which Australian brands will be first to score?