Fox sells Super Bowl ad inventory, with some 30-second spots bringing in over $7 million

Fox has officially sold all of its ad inventory for Super Bowl LVII, with the highest price exceeding $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 best ratings for the NFL during the regular season and playoffs. Fox indicated before the season began last September that it had already taken 95% of Super Bowl spots, an unusually quick start to the sales process by the standards of the year’s most-watched TV broadcast.

According to Fox Sports EVP of ad sales Mark Evans, selected ads for 30 seconds of airtime commanded more than $7 million, but the average price for 30 seconds came in between $6 million and $7 million. He said the official sale took place during the week of January 23.

As for why it took four-plus months to get all the way to sales, Evans said, some advertisers went through the shakeup — in the case of cryptocurrency and the sector’s best-known brand, FTX. Economic conditions undergoing recession along with rising inflation and other factors have cooled the market. “As things have settled down a bit now and people are feeling better about the economic trajectory, some of those available units have been picked up in earnest as January wound down,” Evans said.

As for the number of commercials during the game, Evans didn’t give an exact number but said it was in line with recent Super Bowls. By category, including beer and spirits, automotive, telecom, consumer packaged goods, streaming and movie studios, many of the familiar will be well represented.

With Fox, NBC and CBS airing the Super Bowl in a three-network rotation, current rights deals call for ABC and ESPN to break into the group in 2026.