Super Bowl Advertisers Face a Tricky Playing Field

Advertisers in next year’s Super Bowl are hoping they will get to party like it’s pre-pandemic 2020.

Earlier this year, Fox Corporation took in about $600 million in advertising revenue for its broadcast of Super Bowl LIV and pre- and post-game coverage, Lachlan Murdoch, the company’s executive chairman, said earlier this year. The game itself, aired on the Fox broadcast network, generated around $435 million, a record haul, according to Kantar, a tracker of ad spending. With a booming economy as a backdrop, Fox was able to sell out all of its regular inventory for the game by November of 2019 — the first time in half a decade that the network airing the game hasn’t had to go down to the wire to accomplish the feat.

Now CBS, which is scheduled to air Super Bowl LV on February 7 of 2021, faces a radically different situation. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the network’s executives expect their sales process to take longer than Fox’s, according to two people familiar with the matter, and note that one factor giving potential sponsors pause is figuring out what kind of tone to strike with audiences next year.

Read More at: Variety