Fox Corp. has sold out ad inventory for the Feb. 9 Super Bowl, the company confirmed today while reporting strong quarterly earnings boosted by political advertising. Fox had been seeking about $7 million for 30 seconds of airtime in the game.
Special Report: Super Bowl
Fox sells out Super Bowl, reports strong quarterly ad sales
The company benefited from a ‘tidal wave’ of political ads for the quarter ending Sept. 30
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Fox says it sold out ad inventory for the 2025 Super Bowl.
Credit:
New Orleans Super Bowl LIX Host Committee via Instagram
Total quarterly sales at $3.56 billion beat analysts’ forecasts for $3.37 billion for the period ending Sept. 30. Profit, at $1.45 a share after adjustments, exceeded the consensus estimate of $1.15.
The company owns the Fox News cable channel, local TV stations and the Tubi ad-supported streaming service. Fox didn’t provide specific numbers for the political spending.
“Fiscal 2025 is off to a solid start across our portfolio with strong audience growth at Fox News, record political advertising across the company, accelerating revenue growth at Tubi and a compelling start to our fall sports calendar,” CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement Monday.
The 2023-2024 election cycle is projected to be the most expensive of all time, with about $10.2 billion spent on political advertising across various media, according to the data analysis firm AdImpact.
On a conference call with analysts Monday, Murdoch said that unlike the last presidential election cycle when a lot of spending shifted to national networks, this year campaigns moved back to being more local and targeted in their spending.
Tubi, which attracts a younger and more diverse audience than the company’s traditional TV networks, picked up ads that couldn’t run on local stations because their ad inventory was sold out, Murdoch said. Revenue at the streaming service rose 19% in the just reported quarter and was accelerating in the current one.
“There was such a tidal wave of political dollars to have much of that captured by Tubi as well was really pleasing to see,” Murdoch said.
Fox aired the World Series in October, so the results aren’t reflected in the quarterly period just reported. The match-up between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees drew an average of 15.8 million viewers per game, the championship’s highest ratings since 2017.
On the call, Murdoch said he expected the event would generate a record amount of revenue for a series that went for five games.
—Bloomberg News
