Fox Sports: 80% Of Super Bowl Spots Sold, At Record Prices

• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, November 15, 2019

Fox Sports has sold 80% of its ad availabilities for the Super Bowl LIV telecast, at record prices, according to Seth Winter, executive vice president for sports sales at Fox Sports.

The network has sold 60 of the 77 available spots, and “pacing well ahead” of where it thought it would be at this point in the process, Winter told Bloomberg.

Advertisers that buy two 30-second ads in the 2020 game, to be played in Miami, are paying $5.5 million, and those that buy one 30-second ad are paying $5.6 million — both record prices he said.
Last year, CBS sold Super Bowl ads for between $5.1 million and $5.3 million.

Winter also reported that 25 advertisers are vying, in “musical chairs” fashion, for the remaining 17 ad availabilities — and that the price could rise for the “last handful” of slots, though Fox hasn’t discussed going over $6 million.

The pace of sales/heightened demand and elevated prices reflect fewer commercial breaks available in the 2020 Super Bowl (four per quarter, versus five in previous years) as a result of a Fox-NFL agreement aimed at creating a more “free-flowing” viewer experience, Winter told Bloomberg.
Only Fox’s telecast of the 2014 Super Bowl in New York outpaced the sales performance for 2020’s game, he added.