February’s Super Bowl ads are sold out it seems, at $9m for 30 seconds with a lot of advertisers securing their spots by coughing up another $9m for owner NBCUniversal’s other “sports portfolio.” Buy one, pay for another one it seems.
Super Bowl LX will air on NBC, Peacock and Telemundo on Feb 8.
NBCU’s Peter Lazarus says: “Coming off of the strongest sports Upfront in our company’s history, Super Bowl LX has generated extraordinary interest from brands and allowed us to sell out of our ad inventory earlier than ever.”
It’s not just NBCU cashing in. Agencies, of course, will probably already have mostly completed their Super Bowl efforts, with no production expense spared. If past performance is any guide there’ll be more A-list celebrities than ever, some demanding and receiving as much money as the spots cost. Will (Sir) David Beckham feature strongly once again, despite his family troubles?
This year’s Super Bowl attracted a US TV audience of 127 million (with lots more worldwide and on digital) so you can see the attraction. The ads? Not so great. It’s almost as though with so much money is at stake advertisers play safe, hence the celebs.
