Whether or not you’re a diehard Tremendous Bowl fan or, like me, favor watching very good owls, you gotta admit: Tremendous Bowl commercials are fairly nice.
They’re additionally fairly costly. And nonetheless, Fox, which holds the rights to Tremendous Bowl LIX, simply offered all of the advert spots for the large recreation on February 9, 2025.
Let’s check out what goes into the costliest TV advertisements on this planet, how a lot they’ve price all through the historical past of the large recreation, and what manufacturers are actually getting out of them.
Desk of Contents
How a lot does a Tremendous Bowl advert price?
It’s slightly difficult to place a quantity to the price of a mean, non-Tremendous Bowl TV advert, because the numbers can fluctuate from a pair hundred thousand to a number of million {dollars}. However let’s give this query some context:
In 2024 (Kansas Metropolis Chiefs 25 – San Francisco 49ers 22), U.S. and Canadian advertisers spent an estimated $69 billion on TV promoting. That’s the GDP of Costa Rica.
The highest 10 TV advertisers within the U.S. — we’re speaking manufacturers like Geico, Burger King, and T-Cellular — spent a mean of practically $7.5 million each week in 2023 (Chiefs 38 – Philadelphia Eagles 35).
Upfront primetime advert gross sales — these are the advertisements you’ll see on main TV networks between about 8 and 11 p.m. or 7 and 10 p.m., relying in your time zone — have been projected to hit $19.12 million in 2024, which is definitely a slight lower from 2023.
Google’s 90-second “Loretta” advert from the 2020 Tremendous Bowl (Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31 – Chiefs 9) price the search behemoth $16.8 million ($20.5 million at this time).
Drilling down slightly additional, let’s have a look at the 5 most costly 30-second advert spots through the 2020/21 broadcast tv season, in line with a Statista report:
NBC Sunday Evening Soccer: $783,718 per advert
Fox Thursday Evening Soccer: $624,626 per advert
NBC’s This Is Us: $476,352 per advert
NBC’s The Voice (Monday): $254,224 per advert
Fox’s The Masked Singer: $225,764 per advert
Awards season can be catnip for advertisers, with a 30-second spot through the 2024 Academy Awards commanding a mean of $2.2 million.
Amazon’s 90-second “Earlier than Alexa” advert from 2020 price $16.8 million ($20.5 million at this time).
In 2025, 30-second Tremendous Bowl advert spots offered for about $7 million a pop. That’s practically 220% greater than a spot on the Oscars, and practically 800% greater than a daily season Sunday Evening Soccer business. In late January, a number of information stories stated that Fox truly offered a minimum of 10 advert spots for $8 million a pop, citing unnamed sources “near the matter.”
And that’s simply to air the advert — one time. It doesn’t account for celeb spokespeople, who’re making a cool $1 – $3 million every; premium advert company prices; manufacturing and post-production prices; even the advertising price range for the advertisements themselves.
Lately, between 70 and 100 commercials have aired throughout every Tremendous Bowl recreation, including as much as round 40 minutes of commercials.
In 2012 (New York Giants 21 – New England Patriots 17), Tremendous Bowl advertisements price $3.5 million ($4.9 million at this time) for a 30-second spot. Chevrolet and OK Go’s musical Rube Goldsbergian machine took 4 months of prep and value an estimated $500k – $1m to supply ($700k – $1.4m at this time).
Some manufacturers snag adorned Hollywood administrators for the shoots, and whereas numbers are arduous to come back by, it’s protected to imagine that these administrators raked in some money:
The Coen Brothers directed the 2017 (Patriots 34 – Atlanta Falcons 28) Mercedes advert, an homage to the counterculture biker movie Simple Rider.
On the 1984 Tremendous Bowl (Las Vegas Raiders 38 – Washington, D.C. 9), a Ridley Scott-helmed Orwellian advert launched Apple’s first-ever Macintosh laptop.
David Fincher directed a swaggering Brad Pitt in Heineken’s “Beer Run” from 2005 (Patriots 24 – Eagles 21)
Should you’ve watched even one Tremendous Bowl, you in all probability know the manufacturers at play — normally the most important names in tech, meals, laptop, and beer. Budweiser, Reserving.com, Dunkin’, and Volkswagen have been favorites of the 2024 Tremendous Bowl.
Although Google and Amazon share the title for most costly Tremendous Bowl advert ever, the King of Beers is the King of Tremendous Bowl advert spend. Anheuser-Busch spent an estimated $470.5 million on its wildly fashionable Budweiser advertisements between 1967 and 2020.
In 1999 (Denver Broncos 34 – Falcons 19), a 30-second Tremendous Bowl advert price $1.6 million ($3.1 million at this time).
84 Lumber’s “The Journey Begins” spot price $16.2 million in 2017 ($20.1 million at this time), making it among the many most costly Tremendous Bowl advertisements in historical past.
How A lot Can You Purchase With the Price of a Tremendous Bowl Advert?
Have hundreds of thousands burning a gap in your pocket however missed the deadline for a Tremendous Bowl LIX advert? Right here’s what else you would spend $7 million on:
* It’s unlawful to personal an owl as a pet within the U.S. Quantity based mostly on estimates from wildlife rescues and zoos that feed Nice Horned Owls.
What would not price $7 million is software program like Advertising and marketing Hub or our advert administration software program. You may construct or handle your advert campaigns, whether or not you are focusing on soccer followers or very good owl fans.
How Tremendous Bowl Advert Costs Have Modified Over Time
The primary Tremendous Bowl was performed in 1967 (Inexperienced Bay Packers 35 – Chiefs 10), and NBC and CBS charged manufacturers $37,500 for every advert, or about $360k in at this time’s cash.
A decade later, in 1977 (Oakland Raiders 32 – Minnesota Vikings 14), manufacturers have been forking over $125k (about $675k at this time). In 1987 (Giants 39 – Broncos 20), 30 seconds price $600k ($1.7m at this time); by 1997 (Packers 35 – Patriots 21) it was $1.2m ($2.38m at this time).
The Betty White Snickers advert from 2010 (New Orleans Saints 31 – Indianapolis Colts 17) is estimated to have price $4 – $5 million ($5.8 – $7.3 million at this time).
One other decade, one other (million) greenback(s). In 2007 (Colts 29 – Chicago Bears 17), advertisements averaged $2.39m ($3.72m at this time); in 2017, it was $5m ($6.5m at this time).
Is a Tremendous Bowl advert price the associated fee?
The brief reply: In all probability not. Except you do advertising for a model with a positively monumental advertising price range, a single $7-$8 million advert spot isn’t even on the desk.
However for manufacturers that do have that type of spend, the ROI will be vital, with Tremendous Bowl advertisements within the zeitgeist for a number of weeks earlier than and after the large recreation. (I don’t watch the Tremendous Bowl — however I positively watch all of the advertisements as quickly as they’re on-line.)
And 123 million U.S. viewers watched Tremendous Bowl LVIII — second solely to the moon touchdown — and practically a 3rd of viewers say that the commercials are their favourite a part of the sport. Your $7m advert is getting lots of eyeballs on it.
In accordance with Kantar analysis in 2021, “Tremendous Bowl advertisements delivered a mean return on funding (ROI) of $4.60 per greenback spent, with many manufacturers within the double digits.”
Brad Adgate, described as a veteran media analyst, advised the New York Occasions in 2024, “On this period of fragmentation, the Tremendous Bowl is what tv was.”
It’s arguably the one true mass-market stay occasion of the yr, reaching practically each demographic. Magnificence manufacturers like NYX and Dove have entered or re-entered the Tremendous Bowl advert recreation, placing the deceive anyone who thinks soccer isn’t for ladies, girls, or drag queens.
In a 2024 interview with NPR, Maria Rodas put the ROI of a Tremendous Bowl advert in easy phrases. Rodas is a advertising professor on the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a self-described “huge fan” of Tremendous Bowl advertisements — in her family, speaking is allowed through the recreation however not throughout commercials.
Rodas advised NPR, “[Super Bowl ads are] like mini-movies. [Advertisers] rent these huge celebrities. The manufacturing worth is insane. And so rapidly, $7 million might be, like, the smallest of what they spend in comparison with the remainder [of the money] that they put into creating these.”
“To have this nearly undivided consideration offers a tremendous alternative for entrepreneurs to create a story, to actually be capable of join at a a lot deeper degree with shoppers.”
Classes in Tremendous Bowl Advertising and marketing
That connection is necessary whether or not you have got a $7 million or $700 advert price range.
And loads of manufacturers have discovered alternate options to shelling out $7 million+ huge ones.
So don’t despair in the event you’re doing advertising on a modest and even shoestring price range — $7 million can purchase you 100+ million viewers, however no sum of money could make up for dangerous advertising.