NBC Has Only ‘a Few’ Super Bowl 56 Ad Units Left, 5 Months Before Game

The 2021 NFL season hasn’t even begun yet, and NBC is almost finished with its ad sales for Super Bowl 56—more than five months before the game will take place. “As of today, we only have a few units left, and we’re purposely holding them back,” Dan Lovinger, evp, advertising sales, NBC Sports Group, told reporters this afternoon during a press briefing. The pregame show is also “extremely well sold,” he added. Lovinger said the company has sold its most recent Super Bowl units for as much as $6.5 million per 30-second spot, and secured a matching investment across “other high-profile NBCU properties,” including the Winter Olympics, which will also be in February, at the same time as Super Bowl 56 on Feb. 13. The remaining Super Bowl spots, which Lovinger said are less than five, include two units that are next to each other to accommodate a marketer that wants to buy a 60-second spot, and one Z spot available at the end of an ad pod. “It’s fairly slim pickings,” said Lovinger, adding that the game's ad load will be similar to ViacomCBS’ from Super Bowl 55. NBCU Sells 85% of Super Bowl 56 Ad Inventory As Part of Biggest Upfront Ever Lovinger said he won’t wait until much closer to the game to sell those remaining units. “I think there’s plenty of interest in those units, and what we’re trying to do is figure out the best way to monetize those units and do the right things for our partners as well,” he said. The strongest Super Bowl categories include auto, beverage and entertainment (encompassing both theatrical and streaming), while sports betting and digital wallets/cryptocurrency will also have a big presence in the game. Meanwhile, the Olympics in Beijing, which also air on NBC and other NBCUniversal outlets, are “virtually sold out,” said Lovinger. “We’ll evaluate requests for participation on a case by case basis.” On a record sales pace In July, NBCUniversal said it had already sold 85% of its in-game advertising inventory for Super Bowl 56—a full seven months before the Feb. 13 game— as part of what the company called its largest sports upfront marketplace in history. That put the company on track to sell out of its in-game inventory in what looks to be record time. The fastest Super Bowl marketplace in the past decade had been Super Bowl 54 on Fox. In mid-November 2019, Fox Sports said it had already sold 78% of its in-game inventory; nine days later, it had completely sold out its remaining Super Bowl 54 spots. NBCU’s $6.5 million pricetag for Super Bowl 56 spots is an 18% increase from the $5.5 million CBS commanded per spot for Super Bowl 55 last February during the pandemic. That 2020 number represented a slight dip from Fox’s $5.6 million rate for Super Bowl 54 in 2019. The NFL season begins Thursday night, as Super Bowl 55 winners the Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off against the Dallas Cowboys, on NBC. Fox starts Super Bowl 57 ad sales Meanwhile, just because Super Bowl inventory is almost sold out doesn’t mean that the Super Bowl marketplace will be stagnant. Beginning next week, Fox Sports will begin ad sales for Super Bowl 57, which won’t be held until February 2023. Given the scarcity of NBC’s Super Bowl 56 inventory, and how the game has been sold out for the past several years, “we want to be in the market now,” Seth Winter, evp, sports sales, Fox Sports, told Adweek. “There’s going to be the demand for it, and we’ve going to give people a reason to invest now.” Fox will be seeking a premium over NBC’s rate for Super Bowl 56, asking for more than $6 million per 30-second spot, said Winter—a number that would seem likely to increase given NBC announcement today.