The Super Bowl continues to be a colossal event for brands and marketers, but will this year’s Big Game have a lasting impact on the ad industry?
Recently, Fox reported that Super Bowl 59 was the most-watched game ever, with 127.7 million viewers, despite the Philadelphia Eagles blowing out the Kansas City Chiefs. The Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show featuring rapper Kendrick Lamar also drew in another record of 133.5 million viewers.
Due to unprecedented demand for this year’s Big Game, with ads costing more than $8 million for the first time, Fox and Tubi generated over $800 million in gross revenue from advertising sales across all platforms.
“Every year, it’s got a little bit of a different marketplace overall, but it has become more and more important to advertisers’ portfolios,” Adam Schwartz, senior vice president of investments for sports, Horizon Media, told ADWEEK. “Forget about the cost that they’re paying for the spot, specifically. They’re building full campaigns around the spots and trying to tell a story.”
In addition to Schwartz, ADWEEK spoke with several media buyers and advertising insiders to get their perspective on this year’s Big Game and how it could affect sales and pricing for NBC’s Big Game broadcast in 2026 and beyond.
Here are the answers to the most pressing questions on Super Bowl commercials:
Does Super Bowl viewership affect the cost of ads?
The Super Bowl’s viewership continues to grow. But do fluctuations in viewership affect pricing?
“Because of the way the demand was this year, the pricing would still increase even if the ratings did go down, just because the demand is still there,” Schwartz said.
Samba TV reported that Super Bowl 59 saw a dip in U.S. household TV views of 5%, to 37.1 million viewers from last year’s 39 million, which Schwartz pointed to as an example.
“If it went down by 5%, that’s not a huge amount,” Schwartz said. “At the same time, my price would not go down 5%. Because it’s a supply and demand market—and because it’s been so hot and still trending that way—that price is going to continue to escalate. At some point, it has to level out or plateau. I just don’t know when it’s going to happen.”
