So unless you were living under a rock this past weekend, you surely would have read/seen/heard someone/something related to the Super Bowl.

There is a reason why a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl costs $3.5 Million. A friend of mine and I were conversing last night about why the rate is extremely high, and the conclusion we both agreed to is the fact that advertisers are paying such a premium as a result of the high viewership rate.

Not only are millions of people around the world are watching this event live, but Twitter just announced today that a new TPM (Tweets Per Minute) rate record was broken during Super Bowl 46, a record 12,233 TPM!

Most of the articles posted today whether on newspapers websites or blogs, have all mentioned the advertisements. The ones they favored, the ones they disliked, and even the ones that never got to make it on TV.

What surprised me this year is that many of the big spenders (advertisers) released either the full copy or a teaser of their ads online and on YouTube. This was indeed a surprise to me because I personally believe that it takes away from the Super Bowl experience and the anticipation of who will air what and which ads are going to kick butt!

I wonder if this will become a new tradition and if it will eat away from the viewership share of those who actively watch the big game mainly for the ads. I for one resort to YouTube’s annual “Ad Blitz” page, where they post all the Super Bowl ads on the Ad Blitz account.

Yes I will continue to watch the game but, I will also continue to wonder if this will pick up as a ‘permanent’ trend to skip the ads on TV and go straight to the Internet instead…