NBCU Sells 85% of Super Bowl 56 Ad Inventory As Part of Biggest Upfront Ever

One month after NBCUniversal finished its upfront negotiations but offered few specifics about its haul, the company is finally sharing some specifics about its biggest upfront ever—and revealed that it is well on its way to wrapping Super Bowl 56 ad sales in record time. As part of what the company said was its largest sports upfront marketplace in history, NBCUniversal has already sold 85% of its in-game advertising inventory for Super Bowl 56—seven months before the Feb. 13 event. NBCU has secured as much as $6 million per 30-second spot, according to sources close to negotiations, a 9% increase over what CBS charged advertisers to appear in February’s Super Bowl 55. But the brisk Super Bowl sales were just a fraction of NBCU’s overall upfront, which surpassed 2019’s haul of nearly $7 billion. NBCUniversal secured volume and price increases in the low-20s through its entire portfolio, said a company spokesperson, while broadcast prime pricing was up 26-30%. The company sold $1.5 billion in digital sales—including streaming service Peacock and its other digital platforms—a number that was 67% higher than 2020 upfront and 20% above 2019’s haul. Peacock, which had its national launch one year ago today, accounted for $500 million of those digital upfront commitments. NBCUniversal Wraps ‘Strongest’ Upfront in Company History It had 90% adoption of its One Platform offering, which provides audience automation and guarantees across digital, streaming and linear platforms, and doubled volume for its AdSmart advanced advertising platform. The strongest upfront categories included theatrical, travel, technology, social/streaming, financial and pharmaceutical categories. Super Bowl surprise The advanced state of NBCU’s Super Bowl ad sales might be the most surprising announcement from its upfront, given that the company is 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 million pricetag for Super Bowl 56 spots is a 9% 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 Super Bowl was sold as part of NBCUniversal’s Once in a Lifetime sports packages, which enabled advertisers to buy inventory across its back-to-back-to-back lineup of blockbuster sports events: the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Super Bowl 56 and the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Most Super Bowl advertisers also bought spots for one of the other big sporting events (which also include next year’s World Cup, airing on Telemundo). In addition to its big Super Bowl haul, NBCUniversal also saw record highs for the upcoming Sunday Night Football season in the upfront. ‘A watershed moment’ One month ago, NBCUniversal said it had wrapped what CEO Jeff Shell called the “strongest” upfront in company history. Shell did not provide details, but said, “we saw results in this upfront far beyond what we thought we’d see.” That same day, Linda Yaccarino, chairman, global advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal, said in a statement that “this was the first upfront of a new age. A watershed moment and a clear signal that everything has changed.”