Super Bowl LVII has officially sold out of commercial inventory, Fox confirmed. The network, which will air the Big Game on Feb. 12, closed its final deal at the end of January, more than four months after it announced 95% of ad time had sold.
The lag was due to a combination of worsening economic conditions as well as upset in the crypto category led by the implosion of FTX.
“A category blew up in spectacular fashion this fall and the companies in many levels ceased to exist, so we lost a few units in atypical fashion in the crypto category, which threw some inventory back into the marketplace,” explained Mark Evans, executive VP of sales at Fox Sports. The executive said that one crypto company, declining to which one, was forced to sell two 30-second ad units back to Fox. That then caused another company “that was on the one-yard line before completion right as that news broke” to cancel its negotiations for two units as well.