There’s a lot of uncertainty ahead around the TV advertising market, from recession fears and layoffs to writers’ and potentially actors’ strikes that could dramatically alter networks’ content plans. However, the Super Bowl remains a huge draw, and ads for CBS’ coverage of 2024’s Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas seem to be moving even faster than in previous years. Brian Steinberg of Variety has more on that:
CBS is seeing a rush on advertising slots in its coming 2024 broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII, a bright spot in a bleak market for the TV business.https://t.co/fSfErAEAQb via @variety
— Brian Steinberg (@bristei) July 13, 2023
Some key parts of that, including the media buyer quote from our headline:
Paramount’s CBS is slated to broadcast the NFL’s next Big Game on Feb. 11 of next year from Las Vegas — the first time the football extravaganza has taken place there. Already, the company has sold a significant portion of prominent spots in the first half of the game, according to three people familiar with the matter, and a good chunk of the same in the third quarter.
“We have been telling clients, if you want Super Bowl — now!” says one media-buying executive. Buyers estimate that CBS could have sold at least 70% of its available inventory, and potentially more. To be sure, some chunk of that projection would come from advertisers who have multi-year sponsorship deals to support the event, but notching such a level of sell-out in July is more robust than typical.
…Key to Paramount’s strategy, according to buyers, is not seeking a massive price increase for a Super Bowl slot. Buyers have indicated CBS is seeking $6.5 million or a little more for a 30-second spot, with prices per commercial lessening for clients who buy multiple ad berths. Fox sought between $6 million and $7 million for a 30-second commercial in its 2023 broadcast of the classic game.
Pricing this at a similar level to what Fox did rather than trying for an increase (which many Super Bowl networks do) is probably a big part of why these ads are moving fast. And interestingly enough, CBS has taken that tack before. For 2019’s Super Bowl LIII, CBS kept ad prices at $5.1 to 5.3 million, the same as NBC had the year before and the first time since 2010 Super Bowl ad prices hadn’t increased. Those prices have obviously risen significantly since then, although the game’s TV ratings have generally not (apart from 2023’s 113 million viewers, the most in six years, the 2018 Super Bowl only averaged 103 million, and the Super Bowls from 2019-2022 were around 100 million before streaming). But it’s notable to see them hit another flat period here, and to see the same network doing that.
Another element likely involved in the quick sales here is that there’s much less uncertainty around sports in general, the NFL in particular, and specifically the Super Bowl than there is for anything else in the TV world (linear 0r streaming) right now. It’s far from clear what the general TV and streaming landscape will look like next February. But it is clear that there will be a Super Bowl and that it will be the most-watched TV event of the year by far, regardless of the specific ratings.
And the Super Bowl also has its unique benefit of a lot of people specifically watching for and discussing the ads, which adds further layers to the discussion. The actual attention-grabbing (and media coverage-grabbing) opportunity is bigger for brands at the Super Bowl than it would be for any other theoretical way to reach the same numbers. But it comes with additional expectations in terms of content spend and production value. So that does mean that the $6.5 million here for the airtime is only part of the overall cost. And it means that companies need quite a bit of resources to be able to pull off a Super Bowl ad, which limits the target market of buyers. So price increases come with some risk.
What will be interesting to watch going forward here is how the market goes from this point. There’s clearly a run on Super Bowl LVIII ads so far, and a bigger one than we’ve seen in the past. But there’s a long way from 70 percent sold to 100 percent sold. Steinberg notes that Fox sold 95 percent of its ad inventory for this year’s Super Bowl LVII by last September, but the last bits (which led to their eventual corporate record $600 million take) only came through shortly before the game. We’ll see if something similar happens with the remaining CBS inventory, or if those clients really do need to get in “now.”
[Variety; image from Allegiant Stadium]
