It may be eight months until Super Bowl XLIX, but it’s not stopping NBC from setting the prices for 30 second ads on the Big Game. Building on Fox’s $4 million pricetag per 30 second spot, NBC has seen that and raised it to $4.5 million. That’s a 12½% hike from Fox’s asking price.
And to top it off, the Peacock is asking potential Super Bowl advertisers to pay close to another $4.5 million to purchase ads on NBC Sports Group’s other properties on NBCSN and Telemundo. And NBC is basing its ad sales on Fox’s rollout for Fox Sports 1 last year.
So why are networks charging so much for the Super Bowl? Well, it’s the big audience. Both advertisers and the networks know that the game garners the biggest TV viewership of the year. Super Bowl XLVIII reached 111.5 million Americans making it the most-watched live event in U.S. history.
So until the game stops delivering big audiences and the advertisers stop paying a premium for the commercials, CBS, Fox and NBC will continue to raise rates each year. There’s no end in sight and for now, NBC will reap the benefits of a huge payday from the marketers who want their messages to be seen by the most Americans per given year.
It’s a cycle that is almost as predictable as the Road Runner eluding Wile E. Coyote.
[Variety]
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