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It’s Super Bowl Sunday – and while you might be enjoying it by relaxing on a couch, snacking on potato chips and maybe placing a bet, billions of dollars of big commerce are flowing through everything associated with the game.
Fox (FOX) (NASDAQ:FOXA) is showing this year’s contest (kickoff at 6:30 p.m. ET, but a full day of broadcast coverage leading in) on its broadcast stations, website and app.
Currently, the Super Bowl is rotated annually between three broadcasters – CBS, NBC and Fox, with ABC (DIS) to join in a few years – and the game of course brings a bonanza of ad dollars to the lucky company’s first calendar quarter. In a long-term trend of declining ratings, though, is it still such a lucrative hit?
You bet. (Speaking of, you actually can bet on Super Bowl advertising through a Molson Coors (TAP)/DraftKings (DKNG) promotion.) First, even amid its ratings decline, it’s still the most-watched program of the year in North America.
What’s more, NBC (CMCSA) set a record advertising rate of $7M per 30-second spot for last year’s game, where ratings bounced 14% off a 13-year low set in 2021.
Fox (FOX) (FOXA) is topping that rate this year. It sold out its ad inventory a little later than it would have liked – thanks to the “implosion” of some crypto advertisers after a big presence in last year’s game – but most 30-second spots went for between $6M and $7M, and a few spots went for more than $7M each.
Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch let slip during the company’s earnings call last week that “we will write just shy of, gross, about $600M of revenue next Sunday.”
“We are sold out. It will be a record Super Bowl for us, both in terms of total revenue and obviously in what we achieve for each spot,” Murdoch said.
That comes despite a challenging economy that had some advertisers in the fall rethinking whether they wanted to shell out $7M, Fox said. But Murdoch says despite talk of a soft market overall, “we’re really not seeing that. We’re seeing advertising being sort of fluid and money coming in late.”
Especially for those who tune in only for the ads: What are you going to be pitched? Not cryptocurrency, to be sure, but tech (especially service websites like DoorDash (DASH), Uber Eats (UBER) and Booking.com (BKNG)); definitely movies/streaming services including Paramount+ (PARA) (PARAA); and snack foods including Pringles and Popcorners (PEP). Oh, and alcohol: Anheuser-Busch (BUD) is the top advertiser, with three full minutes of time, but giving up its exclusive alcohol ad license, making room for Molson Coors and Heineken (OTCQX:HEINY), as well as Diageo (DEO) and Rémy Martin (OTCPK:REMYY).
(Check out the wide variety of companies, including betting names, for which ads might provide an attention bump in the coming days.)
And if Tampa Bay QB Tom Brady missing this year’s Super Bowl (and then re-retiring) gets you down, you could always go see Paramount’s 80 for Brady instead.
