The Super Bowl is regarded as one of the biggest sporting events of the year in the United States of America.
It is like a holiday where friends and family gather to watch their favorite sport, the tournament, the thrills, and the emotions, but apart from sport, it is also a great time to advertise. While so many people’s eyes are on their big screens it is a perfect opportunity to promote a product or a service, because the audience is bigger than at any other time of the calendar year. So, with all that in mind, how much money exactly do these Super Bowl ads make?
What Exactly is Super Bowl?
For those unfamiliar with the event or who are living outside of the U.S. we will try to briefly go over what the Super Bowl actually is and explain its importance in the entire television and sports industries. It is a league championship game held annually for the NFL (National Football League). It takes place usually in January or February, either way at the beginning of the year and the teams that are playing are the winners of the NFL’s American Football Conference and of the National Football Conference championships.
Every year it is hosted in a different city and transmitted across all of the United States across many various channels. Many fans are constantly following the Super Bowl odds during the tournament, and like to hold parties, invite friends and bet officially or amongst themselves on their favorite teams, players, or even more specific statistics like the exact number of points.
How Much Does the Ad Spot Cost During Super Bowl?
In the past the costs of ads during the Super bowl were significantly lower than these days. 30-second commercial costs over 1 million dollars since 1995, and in the near past over 5 million dollars with record numbers in 2017 with 5.05 million dollars (5.6 million dollars adjusted for inflation, and then it only went up. In 2023 the cost for a 30-second ad was 7 million dollars.
Many Advertisers over the Years
Over the years that the Super Bowl has taken place, we have had countless commercials, for products, services, or even movie trailers. Many of them get these 30-second clips to promote an upcoming movie to the largest audience. As for the most advertisements over the years, we have 10 companies that ordered more ads than others. Budweiser aired 142 commercials, Pepsi 97, McDonald’s 54, Ford 52, Coca-Cola 51, Toyota 43, Dodge 39, Hyundai 38, Chevrolet 37, and Doritos 35. We can see the trend that the companies with the most ads are mostly connected to the gastronomic food, beverage industry, or the car industry.
In 2023, we’ve also seen a lot of trailers during the Super Bowl. We had trailers for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, 65, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Creed III, Scream VI, Air, The Flash, Fast X, and The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3.
How Much Does the Super Bowl Ad Make?
With all of the numbers and stats from the past in mind, and spending 7 million dollars on a single half-a-minute clip as of 2023, and probably more in the past, is it worth it? Well, if you can afford it and you are a big corporation then certainly yes.
There aren’t any official numbers on the matter, but there are ways to predict or estimate such numbers, based on various factors like the cost of the advertised product or service, the number of people that were watching their screen at the time, based on the demographic of the viewer and the percentage of whom actually purchase products from ads. The most important demo is 18-49 because it is the age range that usually purchases most of the products from ads, so even if a specific commercial did lower numbers than the other one, it still could have the higher 18-49 demo and earn more money off of it.
Based on the approximations of NBCDFW the ad revenue from the night is about 500 million dollars. There are about 70 ads that air during that night so it means that it makes a little above 7.1 million dollars per ad (on average, however some ads make more and some less, so the costs of every ad might not come back fully, and a specific ad might double its investment. It is the closest we have to an estimated number without any official confirmed sources.
There are obviously other factors, and the ad is also spread across social media, and YouTube platforms they are often quite good a high quality, so they are watched a lot on the internet, so it is safe to assume that almost every ad that has been made for the Super Bowl is worth it. However, the biggest issue is having 7 million dollars to invest in a single 30-second ad in the first place, and not every company has the luxury of affording such spot.