NFL Ad Sales Are 'Pacing Strongly Ahead'

According to Sports Business Daily, the National Football League (NFL) appears to be having no problems with selling ads during its games and is attracting record-high prices.

Sports Business Daily noted all cable networks that broadcast NFL regular season games are saying they have sold more ads now than they have during the same period last year.

Some were concerned that the Olympics and presidential election would result in ad buyers burning through their budget ahead of the NFL season. For instance, Comcast Corporation CMCSA and its subsidiary NBC sold more than $1.2 billion in advertising for the Olympics and some of those dollars would have otherwise been allocated to NFL matches instead.

But this doesn't appear to be the case.

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"The NFL is still that live appointment television that delivers a mass audience," Seth Winter, NBC Sports Group's executive vice president of sales and marketing, was quoted by Sports Business Daily as saying. "The advertisers know that predictability and scale are the two most important things when they invest their media dollars."

NBC is charging a record-high $700,000 for a 30-second spot in its "Sunday Night Football" and $560,000 for a similar 30-second spot during its Thursday night matches, while Sunday games attract different prices depending on the match-up.

NBC's costing structure represents a 10–12 percent price increase from a year ago. Meanwhile, the rest of the networks are charging 7–9 percent more than they were a year ago.

Winter's comments are echoed by his peers. Neil Mulchany, executive vice president of ad sales for Fox Sports, was quoted as saying that 2015 was a "record-setting year" but now the network is "pacing strongly ahead."

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