The Superbowl took place on Feb. 13 where there was an amazing half-time show, a great Super Bowl game and interesting advertisements.

While there were some creative ads in the Superbowl, it’s sad to not see any smaller businesses showcased in the Superbowl ads.

Why do larger businesses buy Superbowl ad space when they’re already established?

This is a perfect example of the rich getting richer and the greedy trying to get as much money as possible.

These large companies can spend millions or even billions of dollars on ad space on their own. These companies already have a big reach as it is, why not show a spotlight on the small businesses that need it?

During Super Bowl LVI, Visa noted that they looked to “build on our commitments to small businesses.”

While this is noble for Visa to do so, is it that big of a stretch to ask for advertising space for the smaller businesses?

Having these monopoly-like companies take up all the ad space where the smaller businesses suffer is saddening to see.

I talked about issues similar to small businesses in an article titled, How COVID-19 continues to affect everyone, where some of the issues that non-profit organizations and small businesses had were prominent during COVID-19 (and Omicron).

A Reuters article talked to a store owner, Alan Rosen about the issues he’s having with his business. “Our costs of goods are through the roof,” Rosen noted, “there’s inflationary pressure (and the) supply chain (is) a mess.”

Weform gave a statistic that 34% of small businesses are closed. The Hill quoted multiple Democratic lawmakers, which pointed out how smaller businesses are facing layoffs; reduced service or closure, which explains the huge crux of the small business perspective.

“But small business is a bipartisan issue,” Gene Marks wrote in The Hill article and I completely agree with that sentiment.

Having huge promotions, focused on smaller businesses, in playoff games or championship games (the Superbowl or NBA Finals) can help these businesses bring in customers and make profits that they desperately need.

While the pandemic was taking killing small businesses like the grim reaper, big businesses had massive profits. They gained massive profits and essentially eliminated the small business market because of the pandemic.

Karen Weise from The New York Times explained how Amazon reported record sales (44% increase in the first three years and 220% increase in profit).

Pretend that you just set up a business and you were in the pandemic. It’ll be almost impossible to survive and right across the street, you have an Amazon store that takes all of your customers from you.

Having an Amazon or Walmart is already hard as it is to get customers but because it’s a pandemic, it essentially puts you out of business.

That’s the life of most of these smaller businesses. They get overshadowed by these large corporations and it’s hard not to be sympathetic to them.

We need to support these smaller businesses by actively buying from smaller businesses, supporting them and gathering community support.

These small businesses need help and supporting them means the world to them. But for smaller businesses to succeed, it will take action from you (and your community) to promote smaller businesses and to actively buy from smaller businesses.