SportsMarketing
By Anthony
Crupi
The cost of buying commercial spots in live NFL broadcasts is
pricier than it has ever been, and yet available in-game inventory all but flew
off the shelves in the run-up to the 2016-17 season.
According to national TV buyers, the going rates for ad units in
this season's NFL games are at an all-time high, despite the fact that last
year's prices were already up in the stratosphere. On average, the networks
that carry NFL games secured rate hikes of around 8% versus their year-ago unit
costs, although NBC is said to have secured slightly greater increases than its
peers.
For the sixth year running, the most valuable unit in primetime is
a 30-second spot in NBC's "Sunday Night Football." Marketers looking
to take advantage of the reach afforded by NBC's pro pigskin showcase are
paying on the order of $717,375 per unit, with late scatter buys and slots in
marquee matchups like the September 8 NFL Kickoff game fetching appreciably
higher rates.
NBC is also making a killing on its new five-game "Thursday Night
Football" package, which kicks off on November 17 with an NFC South battle
between the New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers. Unlike its
"SNF" units, which are not uniformly priced, the rates for NBC's
Thursday night quintet effectively were non-negotiable. "They asked for
$560,000 per:30, and that's exactly what they got," said one TV buyer.
"There wasn't any wiggle room on their price."
As one might expect, automakers came out in droves for Thursday
night's re-staging of Super Bowl 50, as car manufacturers accounted for more
than a quarter of NBC's overall sales tally. Newly-minted official NFL truck
sponsor Ford ponied up for a pair of 30-second spots for its F-150 pickups --
football fans, prepare yourselves for yet another season of Denis Leary yelling
at you about aluminum alloy bodies and government five-star ratings -- although
legacy auto sponsor Hyundai sat out the opener. Hyundai corporate sibling (and
sponsor of NBC's "Sunday Night Kickoff" pre-game segment) Kia
splurged on three :30s in support of its 2017 Sorento, while Mercedes-Benz,
Jeep, Chevrolet, Toyota, Volkswagen and BMW also invested in their own in-game
spots.
Part of the enduring appeal of "Sunday Night Football"
lies in its unmatched reach in primetime. According to Nielsen live-same-day
data, last season's Sunday night slate averaged a staggering 22.5 million
viewers and a 13.0 household rating, which marked a 5% increase from the prior
season. Whereas every high-profile scripted series last season suffered
significant ratings erosion -- TV's top-rated drama, "The Walking
Dead," saw its C3 numbers drop 15%, while the No. 1 comedy "The Big
Bang Theory" fell 14% -- "Sunday Night Football's" growth
suggested that the NFL may well be the last remaining TV property that is
immune to the ravages of time-shifting/cord-cutting/millennial
drift/Netflix-and-chill.
Of course, "Sunday Night Football" is hardly the only
game in town. In fact, it's not even the highest-rated NFL package, if you
compare it to the Fox and CBS late-national games that kick off at around 4:20
p.m. ET on alternate Sundays. Last season, Fox's NFC-heavy slate averaged a
whopping 27.4 million viewers and a 15.7 household rating, making it the
most-watched, highest-rated show on TV, while CBS's complementary package was
no slouch itself, with an average draw of 25.1 million viewers and a 14.6
household rating. By way of comparison, Game 7 of this summer's riveting NBA
Finals drew a 15.8 household rating on ABC.
Given the huge numbers that Fox and CBS post on autumnal Sunday
afternoons, the going rates for commercials in their respective late-game
packages are predictably elevated. According to buyers, Fox is charging around
$741,811 for each 30-second increment in its eight-game juggernaut, which is
replete with appearances by the NFL's two top-rated teams (Packers, Cowboys)
and the Cardinals, who football junkies say have a real shot at representing
the NFC in Super Bowl LI. CBS, for its part, is charging around $684,412 a pop
for time in a stack of games that includes a clash of AFC antagonists New
England and Pittsburgh and a Christmas Eve Cardinals-Seahawks scrum that has
"playoff implications" stamped all over it.
As for the Fox and CBS games that kick off at 1 p.m. ET, pricing
is more fluid and depends on individual match-ups, market size and household
penetration. In other words, Fox charged a higher rate for time in its September
11 Packers-Jaguars game, which is scheduled to air in as many as 34 states,
than it did for its regional coverage of the Bucs-Falcons game. On average,
:30s in the 1 p.m. broadcasts on both networks are priced at around $400,000 a
throw, although that rate is said to swell to as much as $500,000 per spot in
widely disseminated broadcasts like the aforementioned Packer-Jags game.
As for the remaining primetime packages, spots in ESPN's
"Monday Night Football" are fetching as much as $465,000 a pop, while
CBS's slimmed-down Thursday night offering is pricing in the neighborhood of
$500,000. "Monday Night Football" last season averaged 12.9 million
viewers and an 8.1 household rating, down a tenth of a point versus its 2014
deliveries. CBS's eight-game slate of Thursday night games, which were
simulcast on NFL Network, drew 17.5 million viewers and a 10.9 rating.
Individual units aside, the key sponsorship positions in the
various pre-game, post-game and halftime shows have been renewed by the
marketers who held them a year ago. For example, Kia has returned for its third
year as the sponsor of "Football Night in America's" "Sunday
Night Kickoff" segment, while Toyota is back for its eleventh season of
sponsoring the "Monday Night Football" halftime show and Ford is
revving up for another stint in support of Fox's one-hour pre-game program
"The NFL on Fox."
Despite the higher cost of doing business with the NFL's broadcast
partners, enthusiasm for in-game inventory shows no sign of cooling off. At
this time a year ago, around 90% of all broadcast primetime units already had
been snapped up by advertisers; this time around, the sell-out rate is closer
to 95%. Naturally, the relative scarcity of available airtime will only elevate
scatter pricing.
Credit: Ad Age.
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