• four number of hamsters Cepia, Inc. sold last Christmas, when they were a super-hot toy
• 40+ number of hamsters the company will sell starting this summer; way to milk a fad, guys source

• The Super Bowl is an American phenomenon. Despite its completely unavoidable presence in the U.S., Super Bowl Sunday is pretty much a nonentity outside of North America, where soccer is king. Even so, it’s still a much bigger moneymaker than any other single sporting event. Here’s a breakdown of how this works out.

Not-so-super viewership

• 106
  million people watched all of last year’s Super Bowl telecast, almost entirely in the U.S. and Canada
• 109
  million people watched all of last year’s UEFA Champions League final, a hugely popular soccer match

Super brand value

• $420M the Super Bowl’s value as an brand, making it the largest brand of all
• $230M the Olympics’ value, despite the fact it’s a much larger event
• $120M the World Cup’s value; it routinely tops the Super Bowl in total viewers

Super ad rates

• $312 million in Anheuser-Busch ads alone since 1990

• $3
  million the amount NBC charged for 69 ad spots last year
• $2.8
  million the amount CBS is able to charge per ad this year source

• Big game, big profits. Despite the fact that it’s just a single game, it often can top the advertising value of both the the World Series and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, which each take place over multiple games.

So why isn’t it spreading?

• complication American football is a much more complicated sport than soccer and basketball, which both have easily and quickly spread into China, for example. Blame the penalties.
• mediocrity The NFL had been trying to tap the European market for years with a secondary league which folded in 2007. Now the NFL has real games in Europe, a better strategy. source

• The car brand would have died without a buyer. Well, General Motors has one less brand to worry about. Just days after agreeing to sell Hummer to a Chinese company, they’ve found a suitor for another castoff, Saturn. Penske, owned by namesake former racer (and current NASCAR and Indy Car team owner) Roger Penske, will only distribute the brand and currently own no dealerships. Nor will they open any. The move, to be complete in October, would save 13,000 jobs and 300 dealerships. source

• 16 interested parties approached GM about buying the brand source