Let’s role play.
You’re NBC. You have the rights to Super Bowl LII, which will air on your channel Sunday, at 6:40 p.m. The game is expected to draw more than 100 million viewers and be among the most watched programs in human history.
What do you charge for a commercial?
According to Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch, it will cost advertisers around $5 million for 30 seconds or air time.
An NBC Sports ad exec said today that the network will average more than $5 million for a 30-second spot for the Super Bowl.
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) January 11, 2018
The interesting thing is, it’s probably a good investment. In the age of DVR and online streaming, commercials are a dying artform. The Super Bowl is a rare occasion — perhaps the only one — where commercials are among the centerpieces of the programming.
Live sports are already one of the few draws for advertising in this day and age, and more than 17 percent of those polled by the National Retail Foundation last year said that their favorite part of watching a Super Bowl is the much-anticipated commercials.
The best commercials in this year’s broadcast are expected to be those for companies Sprint, Amazon, Budweiser, Pringles, M&Ms, Pepsi and Skittles.
In between the commercials, the Eagles and Patriots will do battle in Minneapolis with Justin Timberlake performing the halftime show. Revenues from the event for NBC could exceed $100 million.
Apropos, despite a successful Super Bowl visit to the Twin Cities, sources are reporting that the cold temperatures (it will be in the low single digits at kickoff — U.S. Bank Stadium is indoors) have forced a downward slide in sponsorship revenue.
