--- title: "Super Bowl Ads Predicted the Dot Com and Crypto Bubbles. This Year’s Will Be Filled With Ads for AI Companies" description: "Are Super Bowl ads the nail in the coffin for tech bubbles? We'll soon find out after this year's games, which will feature tons of AI ads." date: "2025-02-02" modified: "2025-02-02" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/super-bowl-ads-dot-com-crypto-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Blockchain" - "Cryptocurrency" - "Future Society" tags: - "advertising" - "crypto" - "dot com bubble" - "super bowl" --- # Super Bowl Ads Predicted the Dot Com and Crypto Bubbles. This Year’s Will Be Filled With Ads for AI Companies ![Are Super Bowl ads the nail in the coffin for tech bubbles? We'll soon find out after this year's games, which will feature tons of AI ads.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Are Super Bowl ads the nail in the coffin for tech bubbles? We'll soon find out after this year's game, which is expected to feature tons of adverts for artificial intelligence. AI ads are, [per *The* *Hollywood Reporter*]()'s insider source, going to make a huge splash during next weekend's Super Bowl. "AI is coming. If it’s not already here in almost every business, it will be coming like a freight train," Mark Evans, *Fox Sports*' executive VP for ad sales, told the magazine. "So you will see some more AI-focused creative, which I think intuitively would be expected." Evans stayed mum on which companies were buying up expensive ad time during the game, which can [run as high as $8 million]() for a 30-second slot. He did admit, however, that AI companies and others that have invested in the technology will be represented. There's little surprise that AI will dominate the airwaves during the sporting event given the persistent hype surrounding the tech, but what remains to be seen is whether that technology will suffer the same fate as the others that splashed across similar ad spots in years past — before going down in flames in spectacular fashion. In early 2000, Super Bowl XXXIV featured a whopping [14 ads from web-based companies]() that spent an average of $2.2 million per 30-second spot, representing roughly 20 percent of that year's 60 ads per an [analysis from Thomas Weisel Partners](). Retrospectively referred to as the "[Dot-Com Super Bowl]()," the event was considered the height of the dot-com bubble. As *Business Insider* reported, at least eight of those 14 companies have been [out of business]() for over a decade — and many, like [Pets.com]() and [OurBeginning.com](), went under within a few years of being founded. Perhaps most egregious of the bunch was [Epidemic.com](), a marketing company launched in 1999 that encouraged people to put ad links in their emails in hopes of getting a few dollars kicked back. By the end of 2000, [the site folded](). More than 20 years later, Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles featured a swath of [star-studded ads for crypto companies]() and others invested in blockchain technology, many of which have [also fared poorly]() since then. Perhaps the biggest fail of the "[Crypto Bowl]()," as the 2022 games were dubbed in homage to the "Dot-Com Super Bowl," was [Larry David's FTX ad](), which dropped less than a year before firm founder [Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested]() in the Bahamas for fraud. David himself ended up [implicated in a lawsuit]() against celebrities who shilled for the doomed crypto platform. The "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor later admitted that he was an "[idiot]()" for agreeing to do the ad and [wished he could join the suit]() against himself. There are, of course, lots of other similarities between the [dot-com]() and [crypto bubble bursts]() and the current AI boom we're living through — but the Super Bowl of it all, especially paired with the timing of the [invasion of DeepSeek](), a Chinese startup that [upended Silicon Valley]() this week with its ultra-efficient AI model, seems particularly telling. In other words, only time will tell if the Super Bowl curse will come after the AI industry — and tech investors are likely keen to find out sooner rather than later. **More on the AI bubble:** [*Zuckerberg Convening Huge "War Rooms" to Figure Out How a Chinese Startup Is Annihilating Meta's AI*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()