The cost for a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl has reached a record high this year: $7 million. Some advertisers are even paying $4 million for a pregame ad.
Since the first Super Bowl in 1967, the cost of a 30-second ad has gone up 185x, according to a research paper from BofA Securities that was published on Thursday. An ad back in 1967 cost $37,500.
A 185x jump since 1967, even considering the higher-than-normal recent inflation environment, is huge. If some Super Bowl-watching favorites kept pace with that type of inflation, chicken wings would cost $43 a pound today (23 cents a pound in 1967), and a six-pack of beer would be $340.
Non-football items like a gallon of gas would cost $61 today if they inflated as much as the price of a Super Bowl commercial, the S&P 500 index would be trading at 16,374, and the average price of a house would be $4.2 million.
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Super Bowl commercial inflation shouldn’t be surprising considering 93 of the top 100 most-viewed shows in 2023 were NFL games, according to Nielsen, making it a major prize for advertisers in a shrinking cable TV ad market.
Commercials for this year’s Super Bowl, which will air simultaneously on CBS and Paramount+
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are expected to be light and nostalgia-filled.
“Serious is out,” Kimberly Whitler, marketing professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, told the Associated Press. “Marketers have figured out entertainment, enjoyment and escapism is the name of the ad game.”
A record 115.1 million people tuned in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles during last year’s Super Bowl. In this year’s game, the San Francisco 49ers play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time.
See also: Will a Super Bowl only be available on a streaming service? ‘That’s where this is all headed.’
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