ESPN Sets Ad Sales Record as Buyers Flock to a Wild and Woolly CFP

Advertisers who’ve been on the fence about buying time in the College Football Playoff National Championship had better give Jim Minnich a call, like, right now if they’ve decided to go forward with an in-game investment. Earlier this week, the SVP of revenue and yield management at Disney Advertising said he was on the brink of a sellout of the Jan. 19 title tilt, which is expected to put up big ratings numbers regardless of the final matchup.

“We’re very well sold,” Minnich said during a phone interview. “We’ve got a couple avails left in Friday night’s game [the Peach Bowl], and for the championship game, we’re down to a unit or two. I don’t want to say I’m completely sold out just yet, but we’re in a much better position than we’ve been in years past.”

Media buyers say that securing one of the remaining 30-second ad units in the championship game will cost in the neighborhood of $2 million, and while nothing to sneeze at, the scatter rate is a steal compared to Indiana quarterback and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza’s $2.6 million NIL valuation.

Minnich did not make any disclosures on the pricing front, but he allowed that ESPN’s scatter rates in this year’s championship are trending at a record high. Demand has been powered by a season of significant ratings gains—not only did the ESPN networks and ABC deliver their strongest regular-season college football slate since 2011, but the TV turnout for the playoffs has been robust as well.

The CFP quarterfinal round on ESPN averaged 19.3 million viewers per game, up 14% versus the year-ago period, with Indiana’s 38-3 demolition of Alabama in the Rose Bowl capturing the biggest audience (23.9 million) for the sport since ‘Bama and Michigan butted heads in Pasadena two years ago.

Also drawing a crowd was Miami’s shocking victory over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl, which scared up 19 million viewers despite being played on the night of New Year’s Eve. If nothing else, ESPN’s Amateur Night deliveries are a testimony to how Nielsen’s measurement of out-of-home viewing has helped recapture millions of impressions on a night that’s never been terribly kind to advertisers. When the CFP committee insisted on staging the very first pair of semifinal games on Dec. 31, 2015, ESPN missed its guarantees by a wide margin, averaging 17.1 million viewers across the two telecasts. That left the sales team on the hook for an unwieldy volume of make-good units, some of which were carved out of the subsequent Alabama-Clemson title game.

Barring an unforeseen blowout or three, Minnich’s team isn’t likely to have to wrestle with a whole lot of make-good efforts this time around. While college football’s 1% have been shown the door—the quarterfinals marked the end of the road for the Crimson Tide, Buckeyes and the Georgia Bulldogs, which collectively have fought their way to 12 championship berths since the CFP era began—the shakeup in the ranks is largely seen as a net positive.

Of course, there’s only so much that ESPN can control, and any game that seems to have been decided long before the clock runs out will shed a whole lot of viewers. Even the long-awaited ‘Bama-Ohio State championship showdown in 2021 laid an egg, as the Tide’s 52-24 dismantling of the Buckeyes averaged just 18.7 million viewers. At the time, this SEC-Big Ten blowout was the least-watched title game on the books; two years later, Georgia’s 65-7 win over TCU fell to 17.2 million viewers.

For all that, the CFP’s new-found parity and a host of intriguing stories have kept advertisers intrigued. A lot of new blood is circulating through the bracket, as Minnich’s team recruited 40 new advertisers, including OpenAI, Popeye’s, Liberty Mutual and Anthropic. Meanwhile, a number of brands with longstanding associations with the CFP (AT&T, Mercedes-Benz, Vrbo, etc.) have been using the playoffs as a proving ground to experiment with new ways in which to get their messaging to connect with fans. Vrbo, for example, will bow a new virtual-reality wrinkle during Thursday night’s Fiesta Bowl.

Speaking of parties, the sold-out Ole Miss-Miami game is effectively running unopposed, as conflicting national sports events will be few and far between in Thursday prime. Other than a U.S. figure skating competition set to air on USA Network and the Creighton-Marquette women’s hoops game on truTV, the Fiesta Bowl has an open field in front of it. The same applies for Friday night’s Peach Bowl, as the battle between the first two quarterbacks who’ll get picked in the NFL draft will contend with more skating trials (this time on NBC) and a pair of Unrivaled games on TNT/truTV.

Many in-game units and other premium entitlements were reserved long ago by the official CFP sponsors, the lifeblood of ESPN’s January juggernaut since the format was introduced in 2015. Blue chippers that have backed the tourney since its inception include Allstate, AT&T, Capital One, Cheez-It, Dr Pepper, Gatorade and Goodyear.

Units that weren’t immediately scooped up by the big national advertisers eventually went to a clutch of regional marketers based in or near the footprints of the remaining schools. Pride in one’s alma mater also plays a role in how the last units shake out. Budgets permitting, a CMO who also happens to be an alumnus of one of the contending schools will usually try to make a buy in a must-win college football game. A little boosterism can go a long way, especially when a marketer’s favorite team has their first real shot at winning a title in, well, forever. 

“In college football right now, there are no dynasties, and that’s really opened up this year’s market,” Minnich said. “Parity matters.”