First Overtime Super Bowl Pulls In $500M In National TV Ads

by Wayne Friedman , February 6, 2017

National advertising sales from Fox’s “Super Bowl LI” pulled in $432.4 million, according to iSpot.tv. This total came from 62 brands, with 89 spots, airing 91 times -- including four extra commercials that ran in overtime.

And the first overtime Super Bowl posted higher than expectations in national advertising -- with over $500 million in total day national TV advertising for Fox.

Total in-game sales were estimated to be in the $350 to $400 million range. Reports suggested that Fox had a somewhat difficult time selling the last few spots in the game.

T-Mobile was the big spender in the game, according to iSpot.tv, at $30 million. Alfa-Romeo was next at $20 million, followed by Tide with $15 million; 84 Lumber at $15 million; and Bud Light withy $14.7 million. Fox had been selling 30-second commercials each for $5 million apiece.

Fox’s pre-game sales earned $73.1 million, where 60 brands with 85 spots aired 94 times. Ford Motor was the big spender at $12.4 million, followed by Coca-Cola with $7.95 million; Lifelock at $4.5 million; Aflac with $4.4 million and McDonald’s at $4.4 million.

Fox’s post-game tallied $14.6 million, from seven brands with seven spots airings seven times. Hyundai spent $7.95 million; MetroPCS, $2.65 million; and Macy’s, Pepsi, and Gain each spent $1.325 million.

Two promotion spots ran in the post-game -- one each for Fox and FX Network.

ad spending, advertising, football, media measurement, super bowl, tv

3 comments about "First Overtime Super Bowl Pulls In $500M In National TV Ads".

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Lee Hunt from Lee Hunt LLC, February 6, 2017 at 11:29 a.m.
We counted 21 promos in the game, including cross-promotion for FX and Nat Geo, and competitive cross for AMC, Bravo, Hulu, and Netflix.
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Terry Noble from Media Data Services, February 6, 2017 at 4:17 p.m.

yes, Lee I agree .... as a monitor of TV advertising it seemed like there were way to many non-rev spots throughout the game ... at least they were not PSAs.

Christi Roggenbuck from Arizona State University, February 6, 2017 at 10:36 p.m.

As soon as overtime started and I saw commercials being played I wondered how this all worked. Since there has never been an overtime in the history of the superbowl, I am sure Fox was not prepared for this to happen, or maybe they were. How did they decide who got to air their commercials during overtime? Were these spots paid for at equal price as regular time game? It is amazing to me that those extra 20-30 minutes of game/air time generated that much more revenue. It also amazes me that prices for commercials have gone up so much in the last few years. I wonder who decides these prices and how each company decides how many ads they will air and how they determine the budget for these ads. The article states that Fox had a difficult time selling the last few spots so I wonder if this will affect the way the spots are rolled out for next years game. Are compnaies tired of spening the big bucks for only a short amount of time, or will they continue to spend endless amounts on makreting and ads? In my opinion, the commercials were a little bit weak this year which is interesiting considering the amount of money they had to spend to get a spot. You would think if a compnay was willing to shell out $5M for 30-seconds they would make an amazing commercial! But on the other hand maybe the amount spent on the spot hindered the production budget and made for a less appealing commercial.