Having sold out the Super Bowl inventory it had reserved for the spring/summer upfront bazaar, NBCUniversal has been shopping around a selection of $8 million units ahead of its big Feb. 8, 2026 broadcast—up from an early-bird rate of $7 million per 30-second spot. And while the asking price for the remaining slivers of airtime works out to a cool $266,667 per second, media buyers say that clients are clamoring for the pricey half-minutes.
The high end of NBC’s pricing is on par with the record rates Fox commanded last winter—including State Farm, a number of marketers that had bought time in Super Bowl LIX had asked to be released from their obligations in the wake of the devastating California wildfires—but this year’s windfall may prove to be even more lucrative. Advertisers who want in on the $8 million Super Sunday offer are also being prompted to match that investment across other sports tentpoles, including NBC’s upcoming Winter Olympics coverage and its new primetime NBA package.
In other words, an automaker that decides to run a 60-second spot (the standard duration for the category) in the Big Game will fork over around $32 million for the privilege, with the understanding that half of that payment will buy time in some of the biggest sporting events of the next 12 months. Of course, that reckoning only covers the cost of the allotted TV time; throw in production expenses and agency fees and now you’re looking at upwards of $50 million.
While that’s a whole lot of escarole for a few fleeting minutes of brand messaging, advertisers wouldn’t be lighting up the phones at NBC’s ad sales unit if they weren’t confident that a big Super Bowl splurge wasn’t worth the staggering outlay. As much as rising in-game rates are starting to put the squeeze on Super Bowl ROI, many legacy advertisers claim that they earn back as much as four times the value of their original investment. When 127 million consumers are engaging with an ad that isn’t actively horrible—avert your eyes, whoever it was who signed off on Nationwide’s notorious “Dead Kid” creative in 2015—the registers are going to make a whole lot of noise come Monday.
That base figure of eight big ones is an awful lot of dough to trade in for 30 ticks, yet NBC’s bundled offer won’t be in play forever. Even if the network successfully lobbies the NFL for a bonus unit or two, NBC will eventually announce that it’s out of sale, and the time-honored “Snooze? Lose” dynamic will kick in. If you’re a CMO who happens to find yourself awkwardly standing around when the music stops, here are a few things you can blow $8 million on before your boss gives you the hook.
Dancing with the Stars
In its 33rd cycle on ABC last fall, the celebrity-hoofers juggernaut claimed bragging rights as the top-rated entertainment series on the dial. The only non-sports program to average more than 1 million adults 18-49 during the 2024-25 broadcast season (the live-same-day average for all 96 primetime network shows was 414,228), DWTS raked in an average unit cost of just under $90,000 in the year-ago upfront. If you have $8 million burning a hole in your pocket, that’ll buy you 89 half-minute spots when the show returns in September. Given the show’s compressed 10-episode arc, you’re not going to get all 89 ads to run in the fall, so this replacement strategy is perhaps best reserved for brands that aren’t beholden to seasonal sales and time-sensitive promotions. (Danny Amendola appeared in each of last season’s installments, so that’s really no different from a Super Bowl buy, provided you’re OK with tortured logic.)
Going Dutch
If the DWTS hoofers are too obscure for your liking—the titular “stars” is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting—Fox has a hell of a bargain in Going Dutch. Starring peevish Boomer comic Denis Leary and that one guy from Community, this military comedy was the lowest-rated series to earn a renewal last season. All things being equal, your $8 million will get you on the order of 223 units, although the show will likely run out the clock long before all your ads see the light of day. Kinda sports-adjacent, if only because Leary really seems to enjoy the Boston Bruins.
1,213,960,546 TikTok Impressions
The platform commanded a $6.59 CPM during the first quarter of this year, as the cost of reaching 1,000 users roller-coastered in time with TikTok’s iffy ontological status. And while the blink-and-you-missed-it digital content is just about the only way to reach Generation ADD, it’s perhaps worth asking if blowing $8 billion on an app frequented by insolvent youngsters who are all but impervious to advertising is the best use of your marketing resources.
793,000,000 Spotify Impressions
Probably no better use of your dollars than to target Butthole Surfers enthusiasts (1.1 million monthly listeners and growing!) who are too cheap to pay to avoid all those chirpy, disruptive ads. Or you could simply eat all the cash, which would take some doing; if you’re dealing in $20 denominations, you’ll have to ingest 400,000 pieces of paper with Andrew Jackson’s picture on the front.
741,427 Beers at Fenway Park
Who needs paid media when you can kick up your feet and have an unthinkable number of pops at the ol’ ballpark? At $10.79 per 16-oz foamer, you’re in the market to scarf up nearly three-quarters of a million cups of lager. Trouble is, they’ll only sell you two at a time, and the suds stop pouring after the seventh inning … and given an 81-game schedule, you’re looking at 9,153 beers per visit. This one may be less tenable than the Spotify thing.
The Services of Jameis Winston or Mason Rudolph
One guy went 2-5 with the Browns last year and the other guy will be forever remembered for getting clobbered with his own helmet. For the price of a single Super Bowl commercial, you can hire either one of these 30-somethings to play all-time quarterback in your next two annual Turkey Bowl games, thereby matching their respective contracts with the Giants and Steelers.
216,216 Angel Reese “Mebounds” T-Shirts
When life hands you lemons—and a propensity to grab your own boards—make some goddamn lemonade. The Chicago Sky forward has turned a haters’ taunt into yet another marketing opportunity, although even if you eliminate the rebounds she registers after her own missed shots, Reese would still lead the WNBA in the category by a not-inconsiderable margin. Also, Shaq’s a lot less likely to kick your ass if you’re sitting on a pile of 216,216 Mebounds shirts.
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
Damien Hirst got the whole Cool Britannia thing rolling in 1991 when he whipped up this jaw-dropping art installation at the behest of advertising honcho/collector Charles Saatchi. The initial materials cost for the piece, which consists of a defunct tiger shark, a tank of formaldehyde and that nifty title, came in at a thrifty $77,801.36, although the original critter eventually had to be replaced after it started falling to pieces. Saatchi sold the artwork to Steve Cohen—yes, that Steve Cohen—in 2004, or a good 16 years before the billionaire hedge-fund whiz bought the Mets. Cohen is said to have paid $8 million for what amounts to a dead fish in a vitrine of embalming fluid, giving Saatchi quite the return on his investment. The rich are different from you and me, but given an estimated net worth of $21.6 billion, Cohen’s seemingly extravagant investment is pretty much like anyone else going all-in on a new toaster oven. A really fancy toaster oven, like from Williams-Sonoma, but still.