Super Bowl Commercials Sold Out at CBS in Earlier-Than-Expected Close-Out

CBS has scored a Super Bowl touchdown in November.

The Paramount Global-backed network is “virtually sold out” of all its Super Bowl advertising inventory, according to a company spokesperson, completing a process that often isn’t completed until the final hours before the game kicks off in February. The company declined to make ad-sales executives available for additional comment.

CBS has sought between $6.5 million to $7 million for a 30-second ad, according to people familiar with negotiations. Fox secured around $600 million in advertising tied to its broadcast of Super Bowl LVII earlier this year — an event that boasted record viewership.

In recent years, the network showing the game has been unable to sign away its last commercial berth until just days before the Big Game. Super Bowl commercials remain a big focus on Madison Avenue, but the uptick in pricing and a wider availability of NFL ad inventory, thanks in part to the debut of “Thursday Night Football,” have given marketers more options, many of them significantly cheaper, when it comes to aligning with the NFL.

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CBS’ sales success comes amid a sluggish TV-advertising market overall. Analysts have noted that “scatter,” or ad time purchased much closer to the time commercials air, has been tepid — a hangover for the media sector, which has seen the flow of ad dollars for its properties narrow amid Hollywood labor strikes and concerns about the economy. During the TV industry’s recent “upfront,” a market in which TV networks try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory, media companies in many cases were forced to give “rollbacks,” or take down their rates, as advertisers moved some of their budgets to new streaming and digital options.

Key to Paramount’s strategy, according to buyers, was not trying to seek a whopping price increase. Fox sought between $6 million and $7 million for a 30-second commercial in its 2023 broadcast of the classic game. The company is also offering a bespoke broadcast of the game for kids and families, to be shown on the Nickelodeon cable network with a different coterie of hosts and plenty of digital effects and real-life oozes of the outlet’s signature green slime. In some cases, CBS will air ads in the Nickelodeon feed that are more appropriate for younger viewers (Super Bowl perennials Budweiser and Bud Light likely won’t have as big a presence).

Getting to the end zone on Super Bowl ad sales can take networks right down to the last second. Fox, which aired Super Bowl LVII earlier this year, saw a similar rush for inventory in the 2022 upfront market, selling 95% of its inventory by September of last year. Early buying blitzes can be deceiving, however: As worries grew more heightened about a recession, Fox’s ad-sales executives had to scramble to unload the remaining 5%.

NBC didn’t declare sell-out for Super Bowl LVI in 2022 until February 3 — about ten days before kickoff.

CBS appears to have set a new benchmark. Fox sold out its commercial inventory for Super Bowl LIV in November of 2019, but not until around Thanksgiving. At the time, it was the first example of the Super Bowl selling out early in about five years. Prior to that, Fox managed to declare sell out for Super Bowl XLVIII in December of 2013.

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Larita Shotwell

Update: 2024-08-29

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