(Bloomberg) — Fox Corp. has sold Super Bowl commercials for more than $7 million for 30 seconds of airtime, setting a record for TV’s most popular annual event.
(Bloomberg) — Fox Corp. has sold Super Bowl commercials for more than $7 million for 30 seconds of airtime, setting a record for TV’s most popular annual event.
The network is nearly sold out for the Feb. 12 game, with a few 30-second spots still available in the first and second half, according to Mark Evans, head of ad sales at Fox Sports.
The NFL championship routinely commands high prices because of the huge audience it draws — more than 100 million viewers. Evans said prices keep going up, in part, because other types of shows are moving to commercial-free streaming services, leaving advertisers with fewer ways to reach consumers.
“There are only so many events where you can aggregate scale like you can in the Super Bowl,” Evans said.
Last February, 112.3 million people watched NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast, a 16% jump from the year before. NBC, which is owned by Comcast Corp., sold some 30-second commercials for as much as $7 million. When Fox last hosted the game in 2020, the company said it sold around $600 million worth of ads that day, a record at the time.
Fox’s NFL ad sales this year will benefit from two extra playoff games. The broadcaster will also reap additional revenue from a busy Thanksgiving weekend, when marketers typically blanket the airwaves with holiday ads. That weekend Fox will feature NFL games, a World Cup match between USA and England, and a college football game between the University of Michigan and Ohio State University, typically a big draw.
Evans said Fox has seen a “modest pullback” from advertisers worried about a potential recession, but it also has attracted 28 new advertising clients this NFL season. And it has seen increases in spending by the travel, drug and entertainment industries.
“You’d be crazy to say nobody is concerned about the economy,” he said. “But from a marketing spend perspective, we haven’t seen a seismic change.”
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