Super Bowl XXXIV Features Seventeen Dot-Com Companies

Public awareness campaigns were one of the ways in which dot-coms sought to grow their customer base.

These included television ads, print ads, and targeting of professional sporting events. Many dot-coms named themselves with onomatopoeic nonsense words that they hoped would be memorable and not easily confused with a competitor. Super Bowl XXXIV in January 2000 featured seventeen dot-com companies that each paid over two million dollars for a thirty-second spot. By contrast, in January 2001, just three dot-coms bought advertising spots during Super Bowl XXXV. In a similar vein, CBS-backed iWon.com gave away ten million dollars to a lucky contestant on an April 15, 2000, half-hour primetime special that was broadcast on CBS.

Super Bowl XXXIV featured the National Football Conference (NFC) champion St. Louis Rams and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Tennessee Titans in an American football game to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1999 regular season. The Rams (16–3) defeated the Titans (16–4), 23–16, to capture their first Super Bowl win and their first NFL championship since 1951. The game, played on January 30, 2000 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, was the fourth Super Bowl to be held a week after the conference championship games (the previous time this happened was Super Bowl XXVIII, and like this game was also played on January 30 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta).