- Super Bowl LX sold out of ad inventory last September
- Game watched by a record 127.7m viewers last year
- NBC has sold out of Milan-Cortina 2026 ad inventory
NBC says it has sold 30-second advertising slots during Super Bowl LX for more than US$10 million.
Comcast-owned NBCUniversal (NBCU) is broadcasting the National Football League (NFL) decider between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots on 8th February across its linear NBC network, the Peacock streaming service and on Spanish-language channel Telemundo and is line for a bumper payday.
The Super Bowl is the most watched event in the US, with last year’s game gaining a record 127.7 million viewers. As such, it attracts strong advertiser interest from brands looking to target those watching the match. NBC confirmed last September that it had already sold out its advertising inventory for Super Bowl LX.
According to Mark Marshall, chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, advertisers spent an average of US$8 million for 30 second ad spots, which was then considered a record fee last year.
Marshall went on to confirm that a “handful” of brands have paid more than US$10 million for slots, which sets a new benchmark. He noted that NBCU did not expand the inventory available for the broadcast, despite the high demand for spots.
“There just was so much demand against it, and there were just not enough spots for everyone who wanted to be in,” Marshall told AdWeek. “So the marketplace just drove the pricing up to $10 million-plus over the course of the summer and into the fall.”
Marshall also told the Financial Times (FT) that nearly 40 per cent of advertisers were new to the Super Bowl, with greater demand among tech companies in particular.
NBC is also broadcasting the upcoming Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, which begins days after Super Bowl LX. The US broadcaster announced last month it had officially sold out of its Olympic inventory and said it had set an ad sales record for the event. More than 100 new advertisers have bought slots for the Games.
The proximity of the two events benefited the broadcaster, with Marshall noting to the AdWeek about 70 to 75 per cent of brands were extending their campaign to the Winter Olympics.
“While I would love to say it’s brilliant strategy and execution, part of it is just the marketplace demand,” Marshall told AdWeek. “We did start earlier this year than in years past. There was so much interest in the Super Bowl and the Olympics, so we went to the marketplace earlier with packages that would include both of them.”
In addition, NBC has sold out of ad inventory for the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) All-Star Game on 15th February. The US network will also be broadcasting Major League Baseball (MLB) games on Sundays, while Telemundo will also broadcast the 2026 Fifa World Cup in Spanish in the summer. Marshall told the FT ad inventory for Telemundo’s World Cup coverage was 90 per cent sold out already.
Comcast has already seen a boost in advertising earnings from adding NBA games this season, with its financial results from the final quarter of 2025 revealing it earned US$2.68 billion in domestic advertising revenue, up 1.5 per cent year-over-year (YoY). The company noted that streaming service Peacock had seen an increase in advertising revenue, offsetting partially the lower revenue of its linear networks.
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