The National Football League remains the hottest ticket in town for TV advertisers, as inventory in the sport's coast-to-coast broadcast packages is once again out-pricing just about everything else on the tube.
According to media buyers who regularly steer clients to NFL broadcasts, the priciest slice of prime-time real estate is once again a 30-second spot in NBC's "Sunday Night Football." Marketers looking to hitch their wagon to NBC's weekly juggernaut are paying on the order of $665,375 per unit, with late scatter buys from the likes of movie studios and telco brands pacing well over the $700,000 mark.
Last year, the average cost for a 30-second commercial in "Sunday Night Football" was a little over $625,000.
While the sums commanded by NBC at first blush may seem extravagant -- for what it's worth, the cost per :30 is almost exactly 13 times the U.S. median household income -- it's not as if advertisers are throwing their money down a rat hole. Per Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, "Sunday Night Football" in 2014 was the most-watched, top-rated program in prime time, averaging 21.3 million viewers and a 12.4 household rating.
http://adage.com/article/media/nfl-staggering-ad-prices-2015-16-season/300376/