Advertisers are more desperate than ever for the Super Bowl

The 2022 Super Bowl is still seven months away, but advertisers with few other options for reaching such a vast guaranteed audience are locking in commercial time before there’s none left.

NBC, the US broadcast network airing the Super Bowl Feb. 13, announced it has already sold out 85% of the ad slots for the game. That’s the fastest pace of sales in at least a decade. CBS, which aired this year’s game, didn’t sell out its ad inventory until January. In 2019, Fox sold out all of its ad slots in late November.

Slots are selling quickly despite NBC asking for a record-high $6 million per 30 seconds of ad time during the 2022 game, Variety reported, up from $5.6 million this year. The 2021 game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs also garnered the lowest viewership since 2007, continuing a trend of steadily declining TV ratings that started long before the pandemic dampened enthusiasm for the event.

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