Not as many people watch their favorite shows on TV these days. They often record their favorite shows and watch at their own convenience. When watching the recorded versions, people will often fast forward through the adverts to save time. This means that paid advertising slots during regular TV shows has a poor ROI. Of course, watching TV online has also become popular, and many people would catch up with their favorite shows online, which makes it even more difficult to advertise on TV
However, with live sports it is a completely different story. Sports are viewed live 99% of the time compared to just 53% of regular TV content. This means that people are ‘forced’ to watch the commercials during sporting events. The Super Bowl is a prime example of an event with a large TV audience each year, and with the last Super Bowl drawing 114.5 million viewers in the United States, advertisers were expected to pay $4.5 million for a 30 second advertising spot during the event.
These trends are only set to continue as TV companies continue to pay large fees to broadcast top sporting events and advertisers will be expected to foot some of this bill. Sports right are expected to rise to $20.6 billion by 2019 in the United States and it is no surprise 45 of the 50 most watched broadcasts last season were NFL games. It cost an average of $1.78 million for a 30 second advertising spot during a regular NFL game.
You can find out more about information about the costs associated with showing sport on TV in this info-graphic from Frame Your TV.