Super Bowl Reaps $1.62B In Ads Since 2001

Having crunched the ad numbers for the past 10 Super Bowls (2001-10), Kantar Media says that advertisers have paid $1.62 billion for 425 commercial minutes, more than seven hours in total, during the decade.

The price of an average 30-second spot has risen 35% over the decade, from $2.2 million in 2001 to $2.97 million in 2010, according to the research firm. But the growth has not been a straight line. The price slipped from $2.5 million to $2.39 million in 2007 before bouncing back in 2008 to $2.7 million. Currently, Fox is selling spots for this year’s game for around $3 million.

At those prices, it’s not surprising that the time set aside for commercials and promos has risen from 40 minutes and 15 seconds in 2001 to 47 minutes and 50 seconds in 2010. In 2010, that was enough room for 104 non-program announcements.

The leading “advertiser” is the originating network itself. In any given year, 15-20% of the ad time is used by the network to promote its other programming. In 2010, the value of such time exceeded $49 million.

Among regular advertisers, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Pepsico were the big spenders, accounting for $235 million and $171 million over the decade, respectively.