Whether you’re a diehard Super Bowl fan or! like me! prefer watching superb owls! you gotta admit: Super Bowl commercials are pretty great.
They’re also pretty expensive. And still! Fox! which holds the rights to Super Bowl LIX! easily sold all the ad spots for the big game on February 9! 2025.
Let’s take a look at what goes into the most expensive TV ads in the world! how much they’ve cost throughout the history of the big game! and what brands are really getting out of them.
How much does a Super Bowl ad cost?
It’s a little tricky to put a number to the italy telegram data cost of an average! non-Super Bowl TV ad! since the numbers can vary from a couple hundred thousand to several million dollars. But let’s give this question some context:
- In 2024 (Kansas City Chiefs 25 – San Francisco 49ers 22)! U.S. and Canadian advertisers spent an estimated $69 billion on TV advertising. That’s the GDP of Costa Rica.
- The top 10 TV advertisers in the U.S. — we’re talking brands like Geico! Burger King! and T-Mobile — spent an average of nearly $7.5 million every week in 2023 (Chiefs 38 – Philadelphia Eagles 35).
- Upfront primetime ad sales — these are the ads you’ll see on major TV networks between about 8 and 11 p.m. or 7 and 10 p.m.! depending on your time zone — were projected to hit $19.12 million in 2024! which is actually a slight decrease from 2023.
Google’s 90-second “Loretta” ad from the 2020 Super Bowl (Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31 – Chiefs 9) cost the search behemoth $16.8 million ($20.5 million today).
Drilling down a little further! let’s look at the five most expensive 30-second ad spots during the 2020/21 broadcast television season! according to a Statista report:
Awards season is also catnip for advertisers! with a 30-second spot during the 2024 Academy Awards commanding an average of $2.2 million.
Amazon’s 90-second “Before Alexa” ad from 2020 cost $16.8 million ($20.5 million today).
In 2025! 30-second Super Bowl ad spots sold for about $7 million a pop. That’s nearly 220% more than a spot at the advantages of investing in marketing automation Oscars! and nearly 800% more than a regular season Sunday Night Football commercial. In late January! multiple news reports said that Fox actually sold at least 10 ad spots for $8 million a pop! citing unnamed sources “close to the matter.”
And that’s just to air phone number thailand the ad — one time. It doesn’t account for celebrity spokespeople! who are making a cool $1 – $3 million each; premium ad agency costs; production and post-production costs; even the marketing budget for the ads themselves.
In recent years! between 70 and 100 commercials have aired during each Super Bowl game! adding up to around 40 minutes of commercials.