Here’s How Much It Will Cost to Get a Super Bowl Ad on the Las Vegas Sphere
Super Bowl LVIII is rapidly approaching, with the big game set to go down on Feb. 11 in Las Vegas, NV. But in addition to advertisers vying for the highly-coveted TV commercial spots, another hot source of ad revenue will be generated on the LED display "exosphere" of the Sphere venue on the Vegas Strip.
According to an industry source—per the media insider website Campaign US—advertising on the Vegas Sphere during Super Bowl week will run between $1 million and $2 million, and get even more expensive closer to game day. Costs will peak on Super Bowl Sunday itself, as only two brand were permitted to purchase a takeover for the day.
Dave Kersey, chief media officer at the Austin, Texas-based GSD&M advertising agency, confirmed that he's seen numbers from the Sphere sales team indicating game day prices ranging from $1.5 million to $2 million; similar to other tentpole days such as New Year’s Eve. Comparatively, a 30-second TV spot during the Super Bowl runs around $7 million.
The source did not reveal which brands would appear on the Sphere for the big day, but the venue confirmed that inventory was in fact already sold out for Super Bowl week. The game-day takeover will last for approximately 12 hours, with Super Bowl-specific art from street artists to be cycled in among the advertisements.
Typically, the Sphere features three to four brands each day, with ads appearing every few seconds for about four total hours of screen time, at a cost of roughly $450,000. "For these big events, they sell these takeovers, which basically means you have to buy all the inventory, so that’s why the price goes up,” the source explained. “There’s also a little bit of a premium."
In addition to live entertainment residencies and screenings of the Darren Aronofsky original film Postcards From Earth, advertising revenue has been a large part of the Sphere's business model since the venue launched last summer. Formula 1 likewise did a takeover for the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix back in November, with brands such as NFL Sunday Ticket, PlayStation, Meta, Xbox, and Coca-Cola also signing on for campaigns.
One leaked pitch deck estimated that brands get about 300,000 in-person impressions, along with another 4.4 million generated on social media. As such, it's difficult to determine an exact return on investment since typical out-of-home metric don't apply.
"Sometimes feedback is that [the Sphere] is expensive because they’re looking at it in a typical media sense,” the source said. "I don’t think it’s expensive enough, because I don’t think people understand the kickbacks that they get off of it." The source added that "the amount of social activity generated off of things that are on the Sphere is outrageous."
