Paramount Says Super Bowl Ad Inventory Is “Virtually Sold Out, Pacing Ahead Of Schedule”

Advertising inventory on Super Bowl LVIII next February, which will air across CBS and other Paramount Global platforms, is “virtually sold out” and pacing ahead of schedule, a Paramount spokeswoman confirmed to Deadline.

During the past few Covid-affected years, the long-bulletproof spectacle of the Super Bowl collided with the larger reality of the global pandemic and then a softening ad climate. Even so, the last time Paramount/CBS aired the game, in 2021, it raked in an estimated then-record haul of $545 million in ad revenue.

Fox last year approached $600 million in Super Bowl ad revenue, and set a new high mark north of $7 million for a single 30-second spot.

The appeal of the Super Bowl is innate, but media companies have also found new ways of promoting it in an era of shifting viewer habits. Paramount for the first time plans to “slime” the Super Bowl, airing a simulcast on Nickelodeon with the requisite green graphic enhancement. It will also stream it on Paramount+. Out-of-home viewership is also now captured by Nielsen and other measurement firms and used by programmers to enhance their pitches to ad buyers.

Creative campaigns may see tweaks based on where the messages are positioned, though it’s still a bit early to have a sense of which brands or Hollywood movies plan to try to make a splash. The game will be held in Las Vegas for the first time, which is likely to provide a bit more of a pulse to the surrounding spectacle, in contrast with last year’s game in Glendale, AZ.

Last year’s game drew an average audience of 115.1 million, making it the most-watched show in American TV history.