Fox has officially sold out all of its advertising inventory for Super Bowl LVII, with peak prices surpassing $7 million for a 30-second spot.
Sunday’s game in Arizona between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles will cap a year of stellar ratings for the NFL during the regular season and the playoffs. Fox had signaled before the start of the season last September that it had already had takers for 95% of Super Bowl spots, an unusually fast start for the sales process even by the standards of the most-watched TV broadcast of the year.
Select ads commanded more than $7 million for 30 seconds of airtime, but on average pricing came in at between $6 million and $7 million for 30 seconds, according to Fox Sports EVP of Ad Sales Mark Evans. The official sellout came during the week of January 23, he said.
As to why it took four-plus months to get all the way to a sellout, Evans said a few advertisers went through shakeups — case in point, cryptocurrency and that sector’s best-known brand, FTX. Economic conditions heading through the fall, including rising inflation and other factors, chilled the marketplace. “As things have now settled down a bit and people feel better about the economic trajectory, a few of those units that were available picked up in earnest” as January wound down, Evans said.
As far as the number of ads during the game, Evans didn’t give an exact number but said it was in line with recent Super Bowls. Category-wise, many of the familiar ones will be well-represented, including beer and spirits, automotive, telecom, consumer packaged goods, streaming and movie studios.
Fox, NBC and CBS air the Super Bowl in a three-network rotation, with the current rights deals calling for ABC and ESPN to break into the group in 2026.
