At $3 million, a Super Bowl commercial is 250 ads in one showing.

More than any other year, people have been complaining about the super bowl ad price tag now that it has reached $3 million in 2009.

But is sitting out the game really saving money?

MSNBC report that the ROI is still golden during the bowl: At $3 million, Super Bowl ad time is ... cheap?

Last year a record 97.5 million viewers watched the tight championship matchup between the New York Giants and New England Patriots, shattering the record of 94 million set in 1996. It was the second-most-watched show since the final episode of “M*A*S*H.”
That means that even at last year’s reported rate of $2.7 million per 30 seconds, advertisers ended up paying about 2.7 cents per view, compared with 5.6 cents a view for the Oscars, which has about a third of the audience.
An NFL and Fox study conducted by Millward Brown Optimor shows that one Super Bowl ad generates more sales than 250 regular TV ads.
“They say the inauguration may be bigger than the Super Bowl. But those people won’t also be watching for the commercials,” said Walter F. Guarino, advertising professor at Seton Hall University.
A tough economy may have caused some companies that were Super Bowl ad fixtures to sit out this year’s game, but experts say they’ll be back because it’s too big an opportunity to miss.

2.7 cents per view, people! It's a bargain, that only those who have $3 million can score.