Michael McCarthy

Marketers such as Honda are increasingly fed up with sky-high prices associated with sports marketing. They warn a "day of reckoning" is coming when Madison Avenue will just say "No" to hyper-expensive sports programming such as the Super Bowl.

As one of the last bastions of DVR-proof TV, the price of sports -- from the prices paid by marketers for sponsorships and 30-second ads to TV rights paid by media companies -- continues to climb. But it's rare for marketers to publicly declare they're reaching the end of their rope. And to threaten to move their ad dollars away from sports media and into cheaper social and digital marketing.

But that's what they did during one panel at the 2014 IMG World Congress of Sports presented by SportsBusiness Daily. When Terry Lefton, editor-at-large for SBJ, asked whether marketers had finally reached a tipping point with escalating sports prices, several marketers sounded off.

Tom Peyton, assistant VP-advertising for American Honda, noted that the auto-maker devotes 18% to 22% of its annual media budget to sports. And the company isn't getting more sports for its money. It's just paying higher and higher prices. The time is coming when resentful marketers like Honda could decide enough is enough. "It could go very quickly. Yeah, the day of reckoning is soon," said Petyon.