It takes some serious cash to air an ad during the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl is easily the biggest U.S. sporting event of the year, typically drawing hundreds of millions of at-home viewers. That’s on top of in-person attendees and viewers who flock to bars and restaurants to enjoy the game with a crowd. It’s a once-per-year opportunity when it comes to advertising, which is likely why an ad spot during the Super Bowl is so staggeringly expensive.
How much do Super Bowl ads really cost?
If you were looking to take out an ad for this year’s Super Bowl, you might want to look into selling an organ or two. Or your house. These things do not come cheap.
Last year, NBC increased the amount it seeks in return for an ad spot at the Big Game, straining the wallets of even massive companies. Ahead of the 2022 Super Bowl, the network is charging up to $6 million for a 30-second ad spot, and even added a few additional requirements to some of its most lucrative deals.
Those seeking the absolute best ad spots during the game — like those airing during the first quarter, and those occupying the first position in a commercial break — were saddled with even more than the $6 million price tag. Some of them were also required to purchase an equal amount of ad space during the 2022 Beijing Olympics, according to Variety.
The rise in cost may have something to do with the wave of cord-cutting that’s swept the country over the last several years. As more and more streaming services crop up, many people are turning away from live television permanently. Typically, streaming services offer a more convenient way to enjoy a broad range of options, and often cost less than a cable package. This has hit many networks where it hurts — in the wallet — and has severely damaged their advertising revenue.
But you can’t stream the Super Bowl on Netflix, and that means something to an awful lot of Americans. Those without access to the game at home will almost certainly plan trips to their favorite sports bar to enjoy the event and all the expensive ads that come with it. Regardless of how, or where, a viewer enjoys the Big Game, those ads will be a part of the experience.
In fact, for many, the ads that accompany the Super Bowl are a major highlight of the event. They are well funded, carefully crafted to their audience, and tend to be funny, relevant, and unique. There is something distinct about a Super Bowl ad, which is precisely why networks can charge such an exorbitant price for a spot.
This year’s price tag saw a pretty sizable increase over previous years, jumping around 9.1 percent above what CBS charged for a 30-second ad spot at the 2021 game. That’s a big jump from one year to the next.
Even a tiny, minuscule, hardly noticeable ad spot is massively expensive. Reddit took out an ad spot during last year’s game, looking to highlight the “underdogs” involved in the GameStop trading frenzy of early 2021. Their brief commercial honoring WallStreetBets lasted an almost impossibly short amount of time — a whole five seconds — before cutting off and pivoting to the next lucrative advertisement.
That five-second window cost Reddit $915,000, according to Variety’s calculations. It ate up the website’s entire marketing budget, but allowed them to air a tiny, celebratory advertisement discussing how “underdogs can accomplish just about anything when they come together around a common idea.”
The ad was thoroughly and distinctly Reddit. It was simple, straightforward, and a little nonsensical. Five seconds of block text isn’t overly effective in the moment — not even a pro can read quite that fast — but in the long run, it was probably quite successful. Ads can be paused online, which is where most people probably ended up watching Reddit’s five-second release. The site still got the news out via its brief Super Bowl spot, and generated traffic, if only to locate and actually read the ad’s lengthy text.
The Super Bowl has been decreasing in viewership for years now, which could also be a culprit in the ever-rising cost of ads. Last year, the event only drew in 96.4 million viewers, which — while it may seem a high number — is quite low for the event. In earlier years, the Big Game has been known to draw in up to 114 million viewers, according to CNBC, a far cry from games in more recent years.
Regardless of the precise cause behind the pricey Super Bowl ad spots, the rising cost is unlikely to change any time soon. Lowered viewership or no, it is still the most-watched event of the year. Networks will continue to leech every cent they can possibly gain from the Super Bowl, and companies looking to advertise during the game will continue to pay.