New York (AFP) - Billionaire presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg and White House incumbent Donald Trump will both be looking to score with millions of voters this Super Bowl.
The political rivals have each secured 60-second ad spots for next month's American football showpiece, commonly the most watched US television broadcast every year.
About 100 million viewers are expected to tune in on Sunday, February 2 to see the NFL's 2019 champion crowned in Miami.
Providing they don't turn off during the breaks, they will also see Bloomberg tout his credentials to be the Democratic nominee to take on Trump in November.
"When the Trump campaign decided to run an ad during the big game, the Bloomberg campaign responded by buying a spot. Mike is taking the fight to Trump," Bloomberg spokesman Michael Frazier said in an email.
The announcement came shortly after the Politico website reported that Trump's re-election campaign had bought 60 seconds of ad time for the football final.
Frazier did not specify the cost of Bloomberg's 60-second primetime slot but experts say a single 30-second ad goes for about $5.6 million, or around $10 million for double that.
The rival ads will come on the eve of the first Democratic primary in Iowa on February 3 and just a few weeks before "Super Tuesday," which will see more than a dozen states vote.
Ex-New York mayor Bloomberg, one of the world's richest men, has already bought more than $100 million of advertising space since he announced his candidacy in November.
Bloomberg has not entered the early primaries and is banking on a big performance on "Super Tuesday" scheduled for March 3.
The 77-year-old centrist currently sits fifth in national polls for the Democratic nomination. He trails frontrunner Joe Biden, left-wingers Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and fellow moderate Pete Buttigieg.
Last week, Trump's campaign and the Republican Party announced they had raised $463 million in 2019, nearly double what Barack Obama's campaign had before his re-election in 2012.
