NBC Says Super Bowl Ads Nearly Sold Out

NBC Sports said the Super Bowl was nearly sold out, with prices expected to average more than $5 million per 30-second spot.

In the unprecedented position of have both a Super Bowl and an Olympics to sell in the same month, Dan Lovinger, executive VP, for NBC Sports sale said Olympic sales were pacing ahead of the Sochi games four years ago and were on track to exceed $900 million, a first for the Winter Games.

Some buyers say that NBC has a lot of Olympic inventory still to sell, partly because some long-time Olympic sponsors have pulled out.

For the two events, Lovinger expects sales to top $1.4 billion.

NBC said it has fewer than 10 spots left to sell in game, and its pre-game and post-game shows are nearly sold out as well, as is the post-Super Bowl broadcast of the hit show This is Us.

Lovinger said he expected that that Feb. 4—Super Sunday—would set a single day record for media sold.

NBC is selling the Olympics based on total audience delivery, which counts all the different ways people can watch the game, with people 2 plus as the key metric, as opposed to using households in the past.

But for the first time, NBC said it was selling separate packages of digital advertising both for the Super Bowl and for the Olympics.

Lovinger said about 30% of his revenue was coming for advertiser who are buying spots in both big events.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.