Super Bowl Sunday is one of the biggest days of the calendar year.
Super Bowl 2026: How much does a commercial cost?
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.
Not just for the two teams playing in the big game — the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks — but for the companies who have placed massive bets on the commercials they will air during the Super Bowl.
Bets that are not cheap.
Every NFL season, the Super Bowl stands out as the most-watched television event of the entire year, and the league has the Nielsen ratings to prove it. While last year’s Super Bowl LIX was a blowout, won by the Philadelphia Eagles by a final score of 40-22, it went into the history books as the most-watched Super Bowl broadcast ever, with over 127 million viewers tuning in to see the game.
With those kinds of potential customers on the table, the price to get a commercial in front of them is not cheap.
According to AdWeek, the price for a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl LX has soared to $8 million, after NBC opened in the summer by offering spots for $7 million. As AdWeek notes, “due to demand, the company has already reached its cap for the number of spots that were available for advertisers to buy during the upfront season.”
This is also the amount that companies had to pay for last year’s game. As compiled by Statista, $8 million represents an increase of $1 million over both Super Bowl LVII and Super Bowl LVIII:
However, $8 million is not the ceiling. According to Mike Marshall, head of global advertising for NBC Universaly, some companies are paying $10 million or more. Marshall shared that updated said on “The Varsity” podcast with John Ourand in early January.
Another way to look at the rising costs of a Super Bowl commercial? This game represents a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX, played in 2015. When the Patriots and the Seahawks last met in a Super Bowl, the cost of a 30-second commercial was $4.25 million.
Since then, it has nearly doubled.
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