Though some leaders questioned whether interest in sports waned during the pandemic, it’s clear fans are ready to pack stadiums and enjoy football at home. 

Ratings are the highest they’ve been since 2016, which is good news for the NFL and their ad buyers. How much has spending increased and who are the top sponsors this season?

The NFL is in a good position despite pandemic

Because of the timing of the pandemic, the NFL was the only major sports league that played its regular season with no cancellations. But it still experienced major losses.

It’s estimated that the league missed out on $4 billion in revenue due to the public health crisis. This loss was mostly driven by limited in-person attendance. TV ratings were also down 7%, but this didn’t pose a long lasting threat to their ad contracts. 

In fact, during the pandemic the NFL expanded their content. They branched out to non-sports entertainment and team owners agreed to expand playoffs to 14 teams for more postseason content.

“So the NFL, its position as the top broadcast property in the United States actually got stronger,” explained Marc Ganis, co-founder of Chicago-based consulting group Sportscorp. “That just helps going into the negotiations for the next media deal.”

So far this season, fans have been eating up the return of their favorite sport. This season’s kickoff drew in 20% more viewership than last year—the highest it has reached in six years. TV ratings are up and stadiums are packed. 

“The optimism right now is leaps and bounds ahead of last year,” said Molly Arbogast, founder and chief executive of POV Sports Marketing, to MarketingDive.

With high spirits, future media contracts are expected to increase in size. And we can already see that spending is up compared to last year.

MediaRadar Insights

Preseason

Unlike last year, the NFL preseason was able to take place in 2021. 

20 of the 37 preseason games were aired across four networks: NFL Network (17), ESPN (1), CBS (1) and NBC (1). These games generated $41.9 million in TV ad revenue. 

Regular Season

The NFL regular season began on September 9th. Since kickoff, NFL games have generated $1.1 billion across six networks: CBS, Fox, ESPN, ABC, NBC and NFL Network. This is up 10% from $1 billion in 2020.

With the added revenue from a resumed preseason, NFL ad revenue in 2021 is up 14% so far compared to last year.

On average, one NFL regular season game generates $39.3 million in advertising revenue.

*Note: This excludes preseason advertising and does not make any considerations for the added costs of primetime or broadcast vs cable. It is calculated based on the 28 nationally televised games aired across ABC, CBS, ESPN, Fox, NBC and NFL network. 

Geico is the top advertiser in 2021. Geico’s ad spend has totaled $116 million this season so far, accounting for 11% of all ad spend.

Geico is followed by: Apple iPhone, Progressive Insurance, State Farm and Verizon Wireless. 

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One of the most significant changes is the sports league’s stance on betting. Up until this year, the NFL has opposed legalized betting. But this year, the league announced that it signed deals with three Official Sports Betting Partners—Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel. 

With this change, we’ve seen programmatic advertising in this category increase 157% year-over-year, with DraftKings in the driving seat. 

The NFL reverses course and embraces betting

For years, the NFL was staunchly opposed to betting. 

“We’re trying to do whatever we can to make sure our games are not betting vehicles,” Joe Browne, an N.F.L. spokesman, told The New York Times in 2008. “We have been accused of allowing gambling because it is good for the popularity of the game. If that’s true, then we have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars opposing gambling on our games.”

But times are changing. The new betting partnerships with Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel are valued together at an estimated $1 billion. 

All three partners will leverage the NFL’s media properties, content and the league’s data feed. DraftKings and FanDuel will be able to integrate NFL highlights and “Next Gen Stats” content on their platforms. And Caesar’s will remain the NFL’s “Official Casino Partner.”

“Working closely with Caesars, DraftKings and FanDuel, we will provide fans new and different ways of interacting and engaging with the sport they love,” said Renie Anderson, Chief Revenue Officer and Executive Vice President of NFL Partnerships.

Where did this change of heart from the NFL come from? 

It was the natural (and lucrative) result of the dismantling of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018. When the federal ban on sports banning was repealed, states began to legalize and regulate sports betting. And revenue started growing.

It’s taken states several years to pass bills establishing the basic foundations for this new legal industry—meaning there is still a lot of room for growth and innovation. States like Wyoming are starting to allow cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Blockchain technology is expected to drive better margins for this multi-billion industry.

Sports betting is probably as old as sports themselves—but legal sports betting has changed the game.

DraftKings drives programmatic spending

As the industry prepares for a new football season, new deals with the NFL and advancing technology, we’re seeing ad spending increase.

In preparation for the Fall football season, fantasy football leagues invested $2.4mm in programmatic advertising in August. 

This was primarily driven by DraftKings, whose spend accounted for 67% of fantasy sports league advertising.

Programmatic is just a portion of these companies’ advertising spending. The NFL is also bringing in millions from TV placements. The first week of football brought in $7.4 million from these companies, 9% more than last year, according to The New York Times.

This is a lucrative yet small and fairly nascent industry. There were only 29 advertising companies in August—but because states are still in the process of putting in legal frameworks for sports betting and the NFL is in its initial rounds of agreements, we can expect to see future growth. 

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The games and Super Bowl ad creatives may already be analyzed—but the advertising data on the entire 2020-21 NFL season is finally here.

We encourage you to subscribe to our blog for the latest data surrounding the advertising industry. We will provide daily updates as COVID-19 continues to make its mark on the US economy.

The 2020-21 NFL Season Carried On During COVID 

In July, the NFL decided to go through with the full season, but unlike the NBA, the WNBA, and the NHL, the league did not require players and other professionals to enter into a protective ‘bubble.’

Throughout the season, the NFL had over 700 positive COVID cases. And the only team to play the season without any cases was the Seattle Seahawks. 

Over the course of the season, the pandemic could be felt heavily in the stands. 1.2 million attendees watched their favorite teams compete—well below the typical 17 million. During the Super Bowl, the league allowed 30% full capacity (22,000 seats). 7,500 of these fans were health care workers who were gifted tickets from the NFL. 

Super Bowl TV viewing and streaming was less than average—yet it’s likely to be the most watched television program of 2021. 76 of the top 100 most viewed television programs in 2020 were NFL games. And even though the number of households watching the program on TV (38%) was low, no other program has topped that percentage since the 1994 Winter Olympics. 

Between people stuck inside alone and the unexciting game, ratings sunk for the Super Bowl. But how did the advertising numbers add up throughout the entire season?

MediaRadar Insights

In 2020, we saw 1100 brands spending $4.5B across the same seven networks as the previous year (ABC, CBS, CW, ESPN, Fox, NBC, and NFL Network). To put this in perspective, there were 1226 brands that advertised with the NFL in 2019, and they spent $4.1B across the same networks.

While there were less brands running ads in the 2020-21 NFL season, the data suggests the ad space was more expensive. 

The top brands of 2020 were: 

• T-Mobile
• Geico Insurance
• Progressive Insurance
• AT&T Mobility
• Verizon Wireless

Together, their spend accounted for 12% of the total spend in the regular and postgame season.

Super Bowl LV had 96 brands spending $530M on CBS, which is an increase in brands, but a 3% decrease in the amount of ad spend. This could be a symptom of the pandemic, but another possibility is that CBS wasn’t supposed to broadcast the Superbowl this year. It was NBC’s rotation, but the networks switched in 2019.

The top brands advertising during the Super Bowl were: 

• T-Mobile
• Rocket Mortgage
• Jeep
• DoorDash
• Verizon Wireless

The NFL, like other professional sports leagues, struggled with low ratings amid the pandemic. But as vaccinations continue being distributed and the economy recovers, sports programming will be a solid choice for advertisers to uplift their brand. 

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