Fox has sold out of its Super Bowl In-Game inventory in the quickest time for the last nine years.
The 54th Super Bowl is still ten weeks away, but Fox Sports’ ad sales team has already sold out the entire in-game advertising inventory. Records show it’s the quickest sell-out in the last five years and the first time it’s sold out early in the last five years.
It's sold a total of 77 spots, with the most expensive 30-second spot costing $5.6 million.
Several advertisers missed out on spots and are having to settle for pre and post-game inventory. It’s believed that Fox is looking for between $2m and $3m for the most expensive advertising slots in its pre and post coverage of the game. The average rate for a 30-second Super Bowl in-game ad has increased by nearly 100% over the past decade.
The Super Bowl is arguably the most sought-after advertising opportunity in America. As we see more people switching to streaming sights, there is less opportunity for advertisers to reach the kind of live viewing figures that the Super Bowl attracts.
Fox’s executive vice president of sports sales, Seth Winter believes that there are a couple of factors that contributed to the early sell-out; the strength of the economy along with the elimination of one commercial break in each of the Super Bowls four quarters to name two. The latter being a plan rolled out by the National Football League and Fox in May of this year.
It remains to be seen if President Trump's re-election campaign has bought one of the spots, but Winter did hint that a handful of slots were purchased by “Super Bowl anomalies,” or advertisers not normally associated with the Sport. We can, however, expect to see a lot of long-form, trailers from movie studios and the usual auto manufactures, technology outfits and beverage companies..