Super Bowl commercials are in many ways a reflection of the American economy. Want to understand how strong the car industry is? Just count the number of spots during the Big Game. Is travel back post-pandemic? The Super Bowl spots for airlines and hotels will provide an answer.
But it is also an indicator of what has become mainstream (or at least what wants to become mainstream). Just look a few years back when crypto-related ads were everywhere, or the slow and steady rise of commercials for sports-betting apps.
This year’s Super Bowl — to be held Feb. 9 on Fox — will anoint artificial intelligence companies and products as the new mainstream (yes, that is despite this week’s Wall Street meltdown after a Chinese AI app, DeepSeek, shook the foundations of Silicon Valley).
“AI is coming. If it’s not already here in almost every business, it will be coming like a freight train,” says Mark Evans, executive vp ad sales for Fox Sports, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, breaking down what to expect. “So you will see some more AI focused creative, which I think intuitively would be expected.”
Evans says that both massive companies investing in AI and some AI-focused companies will be represented during the game, though he declined to get into specific brands. One can imagine Super Bowl veterans like Microsoft or Google featuring AI in commercials, but would AI startups like OpenAI, Perplexity or Anthropic pony up? It seems possible.
And to be certain, they would need to pony up a hefty amount.
Sources say that Fox has in some cases secured fees of more than $8 million for a 30-second spot, which would be a new Super Bowl record.
Fox is believed to have more than 10 advertisers that agreed to the rate, helped along by a waiting list of brands that wanted to buy in last year but were unable to. When some brands dropped out (like State Farm, which canceled its spot after the devastating L.A. fires), there was a list of others ready to take their place and pay up to do so.
So what else can Super Bowl viewers expect, outside of AI?
“A lot that’s old is new again,” Evans says. “You’ll see a ton of beverages, you’ll see a ton of tech. You’ll see a ton of salty snacks and financials.”
Pharmaceutical ads will also be a bit more prevalent than in years past (perhaps getting ahead of any potential action from RFK Jr.?).
But just as the rise of AI will be obvious in the ads, the challenges facing the entertainment business will also be reflected.
“The only category, quite frankly, that is down year-over-year, is — and we lump these two together — movie studios and streamers,” Evans says. “Whether that’s still the fallout from the writers strike and just how much that industry has changed post-COVID is probably playing into part of that. And it’s not like they’re not represented, they just won’t be represented as much as they’ve been historically.”
The eye-popping fee and the cash being invested by marketers underscores just how important live sports have become for media companies, as consumer habits shift toward an on-demand world for entertainment.
“It’s the only place to be able to aggregate this type of scale quickly, and I think it’s a it’s a safe haven,” Evans says of live sports. “It’s a place where families and people from all walks of life come together to do things as a community … we’re seeing that certainly more so in the NFL and the Super Bowl, just because of the scale of it, but we’re seeing it across live sports in our entire portfolio.”