Record high ad rates plus strong sales for TV networks broadcasting NFL games equals record revenue this season, defying all industry trends, the SportsBusiness Journal reports.
“We had a record-setting year last year, and we’re pacing strongly ahead of it,” Fox Sports ad sales executive Neil Mulcahy said.
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According to SBJ, NBC is charging a record $700,000 per 30-second spot during “Sunday Night Football” and $560,000 per 30-second spot during Thursday night games, posting a 10-12 percent increase.
NBC's Sunday game has been TV’s top-rated prime-time show for five consecutive seasons, but CBS and Fox stress that the late Sunday afternoon games actually deliver higher ratings. As a result, Fox is charging approximately $700,000 per 30-second spot for the 4:25 p.m. ET games, while CBS is charging around $650,000. That represents a 7-9 percent increase over 2015 for the two networks.
Clearly the record high prices the networks are charging isn't scaring away advertisers, and a projected sluggish market because of the Olympics and presidential election hasn't materialized.
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“The NFL is still that live appointment television that delivers a mass audience,” NBC Sports sales executive Seth Winter said. “The advertisers know that predictability and scale are the two most important things when they invest their media dollars.”
Advertisers were hoping to catch a break, in part because cord-cutters are pushing viewership down across all of television, plus the networks have to make up for the $150 million that DraftKings and FanDuel spent last year. SBJ reports that the daily fantasy sites will advertise this year, but with nowhere near last year's frequency that helped lead, in part, to their ongoing legal troubles.
