How Much Super Bowl Commercials Cost & The Economics Behind Them

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Super Bowl LX brings a new batch of commercials and trailers, and they do not come cheap.

The Super Bowl is famous for being the NFL championship game, but the commercials shown during it are just as popular. Memorable lines from these ads often become part of everyday conversation. The event has also become a big preview for upcoming movies, with trailers generating a lot of excitement. This year, trailers for films like Scream 7 and the Michael biopic aired before the game, and we can expect new glimpses of highly anticipated movies like The Mandalorian and Grogu, Toy Story 5, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, and more.

A 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl now costs about $10 million, over $2 million more than last year, according to Time magazine. Companies also spend millions more on making the commercials, promoting them, and hiring celebrities. This year, some companies, like SquareSpace with their ad featuring Emma Stone, released short previews before the game to generate excitement.

The high cost of advertising during the Super Bowl is justified by its massive audience. Super Bowl LIX broke records with 127.7 million viewers, providing advertisers with unparalleled exposure. At its peak, between 8:00 and 8:15 p.m. ET, an average of 137.7 million people were watching.

Super Bowl LX is seeing more ads from tech and AI companies than last year – 16 this year compared to 14. Some of the companies advertising include Squarespace, Google, Amazon, Meta, Rippling, and Wix. This year also marks the first Super Bowl campaign for Anthropic, who are promoting their AI language model, Claude, in their ad.

Although technology and artificial intelligence ads are leading the way this year, you’ll still see plenty of commercials for food, drinks, financial services, healthcare, sports betting, and retail. Several celebrities, including Serena Williams, will be appearing in these ads, continuing a trend that has seen celebrity endorsements increase by $253 million between 2020 and 2025, according to XR Extreme Reach. However, according to Kantar’s Kerry Benson, using celebrities isn’t a new tactic. “Celebrities initially grab your attention, and often use humor to keep it,” she explains.

The Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots will be competing in the game, and Bad Bunny will be performing during the Super Bowl halftime show.

Super Bowl LX begins at 6:30 p.m. ET on NBC.

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2026-02-08 22:27