Pricing for national TV 30-second commercials for this year’s Super Bowl is up 11% from a year ago to $6.47 million, according to Guideline, the ad spend and pricing data measurement company. 

Guideline says the $6.47 million price tag (versus $5.83 million in 2023) is the collective perspective across all “currently” booked spots. 

The company’s "forward bookings" result reflects media buys across all six major U.S. agency holding companies and leading independent agencies, which has a focus on major national brand advertisers. 

It cautions that specific pricing for some thirty-second units may be above or below this level, including “those leveraging legacy rates.” 

Guideline also says Super Bowl deal negotiations may also include sponsorship integrations and/or bonus commercial inventory in other programming.

The biggest category in this year's Super Bowl is food brands. Entertainment marketers held the top position a year ago. Guideline did not go into financial specifics. New growing categories in the big NFL game include prescription drugs, personal care, toys/games, and media.

Looking more broadly, Guideline said national linear TV ad spend for 2023 is down 7% year over year due to the writers and actors strikes that ran several months during the year.

Ad spend against entertainment programming decreased 12%; drama, a 13% decline; reality, down 12%; and comedy, 14% lower.

By contrast, sports TV ad spend for programming/content was up 4%. Looking more granularly: NFL programming ad spend grew 15%; NBA was 17% higher. 

In 2022, Guideline was formed through a private equity-backed merger of the two then leaders in advertising spend/pricing data, SQAD and Standard Media Index.