US renewable electricity output

Between 2002 and 2021, Super Bowl ad costs and US renewable electricity output both grew, correlating at 0.9648 across twenty data points. The optimistic reading is that advertising revenue is funding the clean energy transition; the cynical reading is that both just went up because everything goes up over twenty years if you measure it in nominal dollars or kilowatt-hours. The Super Bowl ad and the solar panel share a trajectory and a nation, which is sufficient for a correlation and insufficient for a conclusion.

Super Bowl ad costs rose from $2.2 million to over $6 million per 30-second spot, reflecting the game's status as the last mass-audience television event. US renewable electricity output grew from roughly 350 TWh to over 800 TWh, driven by wind and solar capacity additions, falling technology costs, and state mandates. Both are 20-year growth stories in different sectors of the American economy, driven by independent market forces.

Twenty years of growth in any two American economic or infrastructure metrics will produce a strong correlation. The mathematics of sustained growth looks the same whether you're measuring advertising prices or clean energy output.