NBCUniversal Sells Out Super Bowl 56 Ads, Securing Up to $7 Million Per Spot

NBCUniversal has spiked the football on its in-game Super Bowl 56 ad sales. The company has sold its remaining inventory, 10 days before the Feb. 13 game, it said today, securing as much as $7 million for 30-second spots. That’s up from the $6.5 million top pricetag the company shared just two weeks ago—and is a 27% increase over what ViacomCBS secured for its Super Bowl 55 spots last year. Every in-game ad will also run in NBCUniversal’s Telemundo Super Bowl telecast, as well as Peacock and the other NBC Sports streaming assets. NBCUniversal said it only has “a handful” of pregame spots remaining. NBCU Still Has ‘a Few’ Super Bowl 56 Ad Units Left, Winter Games Sales On Par With 2018 “The NFL has never been stronger and has led us to new records this year. From Sunday Night Football to Football Night in America and through the nail-biting playoffs, we’ve seen an increased appetite for fans to watch the NFL across all our platforms,” Mark Marshall, president of advertising and partnerships, NBCUniversal, said in a statement. “This multiplatform consumption has attracted even more advertisers who have the desire for the immediate scaled reach of sports.” The automotive, technology, entertainment, travel and health and wellness categories saw the largest unit growth compared to last year’s Super Bowl. The game will feature more than 30 new advertisers—about 40% of all advertisers—in 12 different categories, the strongest being automotive, technology and travel. Early-moving marketplace The sellout capped a Super Bowl marketplace that moved much earlier than usual—NBCUniversal had already sold 85% of its in-game advertising inventory by July, a full seven months before the game—but then had remained quiet for much of the fall. After four months of silence about the status of its Super Bowl 56 ad sales, the company finally released a pre-recorded Super Bowl and Winter Olympics press briefing on Jan. 19, during which Dan Lovinger—who earlier this week was promoted to president, NBC advertising sales and partnerships—said that the game was “virtually sold out,” but the company had held onto “a few units” until the final matchup was announced for the Feb. 13 game. “As we’ve learned, some optionality is helpful for us, and it’s helpful for our advertising partners. So much of the decision to be part of the Super Bowl is based on creative, and when we know who’s in the game, sometimes that creative creates some resonance based on the matchup,” Lovinger said at the time. The strategy seems to have paid off, given the additional revenue NBCUniversal was able to secure. Prior to that, NBCUniversal hadn’t commented about Super Bowl ads since September, when Lovinger told reporters, “as of today, we only have a few units left, and we’re purposely holding them back.” However, buyers told Adweek that there had indeed been movement since then, with brands moving both into and out of the game. As Lovinger transitions to his new role—focused solely on monetizing all of NBCUniversal’s Olympic and Paralympic interest—he stepped aside from handling Super Bowl sales and the rest of the NBC Sports ad portfolio. So Marshall and the rest of the sports team are heading up the final Super Bowl business, with Lovinger’s input. 27% price increase That $7 million pricetag is an 27% increase from the $5.5 million CBS commanded per spot for Super Bowl 55 last February during the pandemic. The 2020 number represented a slight dip from Fox’s $5.6 million rate for Super Bowl 54 in 2019. Lovinger said last month that the price increases are due to the NFL’s dominant position compared to other sports and entertainment programming (“if you’re looking to reach 100 million people in an evening, there’s really only one place you can go, and that’s the Super Bowl”) as well as the stable economy (“what we’ve learned is when consumers consume, advertisers advertise”). Some categories that sat out during last year’s Super Bowl because of the pandemic, like movie studios, have returned, joined by new categories like sports betting, cryptocurrency and streaming platforms. And Super Bowl category mainstays like automotive, QSR and beverage will again have a big presence in the game. This year’s Super Bowl advertisers will include Nissan, Rakuten, Booking.com, Anheuser-Busch, Vroom, Frito-Lay, Kia, Sam’s Club, Taco Bell, BMW, Uber Eats, Gillette and Wallbox. NBCUniversal wrapped its Super Bowl ad sales in a similar time frame as ViacomCBS, which last year used the same “virtually sold out” terminology to describe the status of sales for Super Bowl 55, 11 days before the game. That was consistent with how CBS has announced Super Bowl sellouts in the past: While there technically isn’t any remaining in-game inventory, the company will still try to find a way to accommodate any marketers who make a great offer at the last minute. But for 2020’s game, Super Bowl 54, Fox sold out of its in-game inventory 10 weeks early, for the fastest market in nine years. For all the latest Super Bowl advertising news—who’s in, who’s out, teasers, full ads and more—check out Adweek’s Super Bowl 2022 Ad Tracker and the rest of our stories about the Big Game. And join us on the evening of Feb. 13 for the best in-game coverage of the commercials anywhere.