Super Bowl Ads Sell Out, Reaching Over $7 Milllion a Spot
Super Bowl ads are selling out (again) this year, with prices for commercials topping $7 million a spot. According to reports, Fox (which is airing Super Bowl LVII this year) has sold 95% of its advertising inventory for the Super Bowl by September of last year. However, the downturn in the economy in October made it hard for Fox to unload the last 5% of its ad space – but it finalized a deal to do so and is now announcing that all Super Bowl ad spots are officially sold out. There is the noted detail that three ad units in the pre-kickoff timeslot and one-and-a-half units in the post-game slot are still open to fill.
In the deeper breakdown, it seems that Fox started to sell ads for the 2023 Super Bowl as far back as 18 months ago – before NBC had even opened the doors for 2022 Super Bowl ads. The Fox team also staked out a bold price point of $6 million per 30-second spot and closed most deals by the Summer of last year. However, the economy and other game-changing factors (like the fall of crypto agency FTX, which had a big Super Bowl ad in 2022), made advertisers second-guess their commitments.
"We were having conversations with marketers at an uncertain time," Mark Evans, executive vice president of sales for Fox Sports told Variety, explaining that advertisers were indecisive, hoping for more solid economic waters: "'We want to be there. We plan to be there. We need to be there.'" Evans said, speaking for clients at the time. "'Let's have another inflation report. Let's have another earnings report.' There were bumps, but never a point where we were like, 'Oh, man, this is going south.'"
While there are plenty of the usual big advertisers (beverages, food/snacks, automotive, Internet businesses, etc.), there's also plenty for geek/entertainment culture fans to be excited for, as well. Trailers we expect to see range from big Marvel spots (Ant-Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, The Marvels, and next Marvel Disney+ shows), to DC (The Flash movie trailer, Blue Beetle teaser), to Star Wars (The Mandalorian Season 3, Ahsoka), blockbuster movie franchises (Fast X, Indiana Jones 5, Mission Impossible 7, Creed III, John Wick 4, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts trailers), plus
some highly-anticipated new movies (Super Mario Bros. Movie, Cocaine Bear, Dungeons & Dragons).
The 2023 Super Bowl will air on Fox on Sunday, February 12th.