If you haven’t heard, ESPN will televise its first Super Bowl this year.
More accurately, it’s a Disney game. It will land on multiple Disney properties, with ABC (not ESPN) generating the vast majority of the viewership. And while ESPN/ABC/Disney obviously hope for the game to be the most-watched Super Bowl of all time, every network that televises the game has that goal, every year.
Despite the relentless hype tied to the return of Disney to the Super Bowl rotation, not a single extra viewer will watch the game because of that. When the Super Bowl rolls around, “who’s playing?” is the question. Not “who’s televising it?”
The right to televise it comes with the ability to put the thumb on the scale for Super Bowl commercials. In this case, Disney may have pushed a little too hard.
Via Brian Steinberg of Variety, Disney “seems to be backing off” its earlier demands of $10 million for a 30-second commercial and a $10 million “match” for other inventory. Per the report, Disney has sold more than ten 30-second ad slots for around $9 million each. It is also “entertaining counteroffers” to the $10 million match.
Ultimately, the ads will sell for whatever someone is willing to offer, and for whatever Disney is willing to accept. And the viewership will be determined not by the fact that the game is on the various Disney networks, but whether the teams involved are compelling — and whether the game is close and competitive and not the ‘70s-style suffocation that played out between the Patriots and Seahawks in February.
