Super Bowl ads have sold out (again) this year, with commercial prices exceeding $7 million per spot. According to reports, Fox (which is airing Super Bowl LVII this year) sold 95% of its ad inventory for the Super Bowl last September. However, the economic downturn in October made it difficult for Fox to clear the last 5% of its ad space – but it has made a deal to do so and is now announcing that all Super Bowl ad spots have officially sold out. There’s the well-known detail that three ad units in the pre-kick off time slot and one and a half ad units in the post-match time slot are still open to fill.
In the deeper analysis, it seems that Fox started selling ads for the 2023 Super Bowl as early as 18 months ago — before NBC had even opened the doors to 2022 Super Bowl ads. The Fox team also set a bold price of $6 million per 30-second spot and closed the most deals by the summer of last year. However, the economy and other groundbreaking factors (such as the fall of crypto agency FTX, which ran a major Super Bowl ad in 2022), caused advertisers to question their commitments.
“We were having conversations with marketers at an uncertain time,” Mark Evans, executive vice president of sales for Fox Sports, told Variety, explaining that advertisers were indecisive and hoping for more solid economic waters: “‘We want to be there. We intend to be there. We need to be there,” Evans said, speaking to clients. “Let’s have another inflation report. Let’s have another earnings report.” There were bumps, but never a point where we thought, ‘Oh man, this is going south.'”
While there are many of the usual big advertisers (beverages, food/snacks, cars, internet companies, etc.), there is also plenty for geek/entertainment culture enthusiasts to get excited about. Trailers we expect to see range from major Marvel spots (Ant-Man 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, The Marvels and further Marvel Disney+ shows), to direct current (The Flash movie trailer, Blue Beetle teaser), Unpleasant Star Wars (The Mandalorian Season 3, Ahsoka), blockbuster movie franchises (Fast X, Indiana Jones 5, Mission Impossible 7, Creed III, John Wick 4, And Transformers: Rise of the Beasts trailers), plus
some highly anticipated new movies (Super Mario Bros. Movie, Cocaine Bear, Dungeons & Dragons).
The 2023 Super Bowl will air on Fox on Sunday, February 12.
