So you can’t advertise at the Super Bowl, where else can marketers go?
All eyes on the Super Bowl
The Super Bowl offers a rare opportunity for the population to connect over a single broadcast. The event inspires water cooler conversations — reaching not just football fans, but fans of music, pop culture, and even people just tuning in for the ads. The mass reach and highly engaged audience make the Super Bowl worth considering for advertisers who are able to afford it.
With 71% of viewers looking forward to the ads during the Super Bowl, and with 123 million people tuning in, it’s not surprising that a 30-second spot this year costs about $7 million. But for brands that don’t have the budget to advertise during the game, don’t stray away just yet. Thanks to the fragmentation of streaming and new opportunities in audio, advertisers of all sizes can activate a winning Super Bowl strategy and tap into the buzz of “The Big Game.”
The cost of streaming fragmentation
For the 2025 Super Bowl, advertising on the live broadcast can only be accomplished via direct buys with Fox, which will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. But because demand is so high, $7 million for a spot is an easy sell as the last spot was sold in November 2024 — three months before the game.
Although Super Bowl inventory is in tight supply, inventory for regular season and playoff games is much more fragmented and accessible. With Amazon Prime owning Thursday Night Football, Netflix streaming the NFL’s Christmas Day games, NFL Sunday Ticket games occurring on YouTube TV, and this year’s playoff games appearing on Peacock, it’s estimated that fans will need to spend up to $788 this year to watch every game as multiple streaming services and networks maintain rights to games.
While the NFL is committed to keeping the Super Bowl on network TV, budget-conscious advertisers can align with content surrounding the games via other digital avenues. Private marketplace (PMP) deals with streaming platforms offer the opportunity to bid programmatically on available inventory in the NFL regular season, playoff games, and shoulder content surrounding the Super Bowl. Shoulder content includes news, analysis, interviews, and coverage leading up to the Super Bowl across networks like ESPN, the NFL Network, Fox Sports, and Fubo Sports.
Running brand messaging alongside NFL content can be an effective way for advertisers to connect with a large and engaged audience that is similar to NFL fans. As the season progresses and gets closer to the final showdown for the Lombardi Trophy, fans are tuning in and engaging even more, providing a great opportunity for brands to get in front of a large audience.
Budget-friendly opportunities for marketers on Super Bowl weekend
Aligning with Super Bowl weekend to drive brand awareness through a large and engaged audience comes in more forms than in-game spots on linear or connected TV (CTV). Advertisers can also target programs that create buzz and capitalize on the Super Bowl’s popularity without a $7 million price tag. Examples that brands may be taking advantage of this year include:
- Running on streaming services that feature shows that talk about football leading up to the Super Bowl (like Fox Sports, ESPN, or the NFL Network): Advertisers can set up private marketplace (PMP) deals with programmatic advertising to run video ads across premium CTV networks that feature sports-related highlights and updates
- Target Super Bowl behavioral audiences: By targeting audiences researching pre-game activities, brands can reach the same people who will watch the Super Bowl. Programmatic advertising offers pre-built audiences of people shopping before the Super Bowl or researching Super Bow recipes, which can be used to target relevant users.
- Showing up in Super-Bowl-related contexts: By taking a contextual approach, advertisers can show up on sites relevant to the Super Bowl. Opportunities for alignment include fantasy football sites or sports news sites like espn.com or cbssports.com. Contextual segments like these are also already available to use with programmatic advertising
- Adjacent programming: The NFL’s awards show “NFL Honors” streams the Thursday before the Super Bowl, the NFL Pro Bowl airs the week before the Super Bowl, and Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl” airs the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday. These Super-Bowl-adjacent programs offer a different perspective on contextual alignment at a fraction of the cost
- Adding audio into the playbook: Before the NFL season starts, podcasters and sports news talk show hosts are predicting who they think will win the Super Bowl in the upcoming season. The Ringer NFL Show, NFL Daily Podcast, and New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce are just a few football podcasts where advertisers can be heard next to Super Bowl content
What this means for marketers
While in-game Super Bowl ads are known for their audacious rates, fragmented media consumption habits offer opportunities to align with the game for a fraction of the investment. Although all advertisers cannot afford 30-second, in-game video inventory, it does not mean they need to scrap Super Bowl alignment from their advertising strategy. Today’s media fragmentation can be used to advertisers’ benefit as instead of making audiences unreachable, it redefines what it means to reach a broad audience.
