The upcoming Super Bowl LXI, set to be a landmark event in ESPN history, is already sold out in advertising, corporate parent company Disney said Wednesday.
In a call with analysts to detail the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings, Disney CFO Hugh Johnston said the upcoming NFL title game at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles is sold out. The timing for that end of available ad inventory beats NBC’s timing for selling out Super Bowl LX last season by about a month, and Fox’s for Super Bowl LIX to end the 2024 season by three months.
Disney did not detail specific financials around the sellout, but Johnston said its sports-related results from this spring’s advertising upfront grew by a percentage “in the low teens.” Not surprisingly, Disney made Super Bowl LX a focal point of its upfront presentation in May in New York, highlighting the fact that it will be the first Super Bowl aired on the network since its 1979 founding.
“Our upfront and a sold-out Super Bowl LXI make it clear: brands see Disney as a must-have investment, one built on our ability to deliver audiences at scale, across live events and streaming, all year long,” said Disney president of global advertising Rita Ferro.
Disney had reportedly been seeking $10 million for 30-second ad slots in Super Bowl LXI, moving well past the $8 million mark for much of the ad sales for Super Bowl LX. After some pushback from advertisers on pricing, however, many Super Bowl LXI units are thought to have instead sold in a range of $8 million to $9 million each.
The Super Bowl LXI ad sales included deals with 58 brands across 34 categories, including nine first-time advertisers, Disney said.
The game will be shown across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, and the ESPN direct-to-consumer streaming service. That breadth of coverage, as well as another expansion in Nielsen’s methodology for measuring viewing audiences, positions next year’s Super Bowl as a strong contender to surpass Super Bowl LIX in early 2025 and set a U.S. television industry record.
Mixed Results
Disney, meanwhile, detailed a somewhat mixed set of financial results for its fiscal third quarter. Overall revenue grew 7% to $25.2 billion, and operating income rose 21% to $5.56 billion.
Within the sports segment led by ESPN, revenue grew 4% to $4.5 billion, while segment operating income fell 17% to $858 million. The decline in that latter metric owed to a series of factors, including higher NBA rights costs and the timing of those rights fees, and some sweeps in this spring’s NBA and NHL playoffs that resulted in fewer games—each of which generated historically high viewership.
Disney also warned of more potential cuts following a wave of staff layoffs last month.
“We remain highly focused on reducing costs across the enterprise to create incremental capacity to invest for growth and are evaluating a variety of levers, including reductions in labor and [selling, general, and administrative expenses],” the company said in a letter to shareholders. “We are mid-stream in this work and will provide future updates on our progress.”
Notably, Disney also took something of a swipe at Comcast, owner of NBCUniversal and the Universal line of theme parks. In Comcast’s earnings call last month, that company detailed a softening in its park attendance, something Disney said isn’t happening at their destinations.
“It’s important, I think, to highlight that we’re performing significantly better than our competition,” said Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro. “And in doing that, delivering strong volume and per-cap spending results. And to remind everyone, we’re achieving this even during a period where there’s a fair amount of macro uncertainty.”
