Fox nearly sells all Super Bowl LVII commercial spots
Yahoo Finance's Allie Canal discusses reports that Fox has already filled nearly all its Super Bowl ad spots.
Video Transcript
- Speaking of ads, the NFL's season kicks off tomorrow night. And already, Fox says it's almost sold out of Super Bowl ads somewhere around the $7 million mark. What can you tell us?
ALLIE CANAL: Yeah, Fox saying that 95% of its Super Bowl inventory has been claimed that only leaves about five 30-second ads left on the market. Like you were saying, sources at Variety have confirmed that several ads sold for above $7 million. That would be a record price point for a 30-second ad especially compared to last year's 5.6 million. But pricing really has seemed to have gotten more expensive across the board, especially when we think about streamers now entering the market, I just mentioned Netflix's upcoming ad tier.
And last week, the Journal reported that Netflix is looking to charge advertisers roughly $65 to reach 1,000 viewers. That's something known as CPM or cost per thousand. And that charge is significantly higher compared to most competitors. The industry standard is around a $20 average CPM rate. So this $65 charge from Netflix actually puts it roughly on par with the costs of some of these Super Bowl ads.
So despite this overall slowdown in the ad market at large, it seems like that there's a lot of pricing power across the industry, especially when you talk about sports and streaming.
- And nobody's got pricing power like the NFL. Allie Canal, good stuff, thank you so much. It should be interesting ahead, because the question is, who are these advertisers? We don't have a great glimpse at who they are yet. Remember last year in Los Angeles, this was the Crypto Bowl with crypto companies everywhere you turn, Seana. That was the theme of it.
And the other thing that's been a theme for the last 10 years has been Budweiser. They lost or let go their exclusivity of being the only beer company. So who will these companies be? It's anyone's guess, presumably, a beer company will make a big splash with 112 million viewers last year and crypto companies nowhere near the Super Bowl. I wouldn't expect a single ad.
- Yeah, I don't know if the crypto companies can afford to pay the big bucks here that the Super Bowl requires because of the winter, the crypto winter, as people love to call it, that we have seen play out in that market this year. I think there's also really highlights two things. One, the fact that maybe ad spending is a bit healthier than we were led on to believe in the most recent earnings reports. And then two, the fact that sports are still attracting that top dollar, Richelle. I mean, it'll be interesting to see exactly what brands are willing to fork over this much money in order to advertise during the big game, during the Super Bowl this year.
But it speaks to, I think the audience, the fact that for the Super Bowl, so many people stick around and watch these ads which is why brands are willing to spend so much. But sports is still attracting some of that money that I think we-- a bunch of us were questioning here over the last couple weeks if that in fact would still stay intact that trend.
- I mean, it's interesting because when you think of where this ad spend is, when you think of the Super Bowl, this is appointment television. This is-- you're not going to see it early. Everyone has to see it at the same time. You literally have a captive audience. So if any time it's the time you'll get them, that's the time, because when you look at some of these pep subscription services where you have the choice of these ads, or you can just pay to just never see the ads if you don't want to. That's not where they can catch you.
But when it comes to appointment TV, that's where the NFL and these sports teams definitely have the edge. And I know crypto, you know, is feeling like, sort of, kryptonite with a lot of the backlash. So it'll be interesting to see if any of them show up. Maybe Sam Bankman-Fried might be the only one who could afford it since he's, you know, helping consolidate displacement. He's about the only one I can think of.
- In particular, his relationship with Tom Brady, that may be reason enough. And he does have the money to probably sneak an ad in there. But as for appointment television, no bigger appointment than the halftime show which also lost its advertiser. Pepsi pulling out for the first time. So again, we ask who will step up?
There have been reports that the NFL is seeking $50 million annually for the sponsorship of the halftime show, which in many cases is the peak number of viewers somewhere around that 110 to 115 million eyeballs on it. It was pretty spectacular last year. That's a huge ad dollar. And look, the NFL is king right now. It's not just the Super Bowl, the regular season and the postseason last year, 4.43 billion in ad revenue alone for the NFL.
That number, Seana, was up 14% from the year prior. So it is extraordinarily healthy and showing no sign of slowing down.
- Yeah. And even more stats in regards to that, Fox and NBC both saying that they have sold more than 90% of their NFL regular season ad inventory for the season, which starts obviously on the eighth. Last year, at this time, they'd only sold about 80% of their ad space. So 80% compared to this year, 90%, not a huge jump, but it really speaks to the demand-- as well.
- 10%.
- That's very significant in an industry that, apparently, we thought was slowing down significantly.
- Not at all according to those numbers. Good stuff.
