\n
With less than two weeks to go until the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship, the ad sales team at Disney, which holds the exclusive media rights to the CFP, is \u201cdamn close\u201d to selling out, according to Jim Minnich, SVP of revenue and yield management.<\/p>\n
Even in a calendar period jam-packed with events like the Winter Olympics and Paralympics and the Super Bowl, demand and prices for college football are on the rise, Minnich said, a trend driven by multiyear partners, increased spend from returning advertisers, and new advertiser categories like AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrands are spending more because they\u2019re seeing results,\u201d Minnich told Marketing Brew. \u201cThere\u2019s a different opportunity with college football than there is [for] other football properties.\u201d<\/p>\n
40-yard dash:<\/strong> The CFP welcomed 40 new advertisers to its lineup this season, including two AI clients, OpenAI and Anthropic, Minnich said. Liberty Mutual and Zoom are also among the biggest new advertisers. There are several movie studios and media companies among the new cohort\u2014such as A24, Peacock, Sony Pictures, and FX\u2014as well as fast-food restaurants like Arby\u2019s and KFC and tech companies like Meta and LinkedIn.<\/p>\nThe CFP also has a number of long-term and returning advertisers, including AT&T, Mercedes-Benz, and Vrbo. Of those returning advertisers, more than half increased their spend this season compared to last, according to Disney Advertising.<\/p>\n
With demand on the rise, CPMs have also been increasing, Minnich told us. Ad prices for the championship game in particular are higher than they were last year: Minnich declined to specify the exact increase, but said there\u2019s been \u201chealthy growth year over year.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The game plan:<\/strong> Multiyear partners \u201cset the baseline for demand\u201d for properties like the CFP National Championship and occupy quite a bit of college football ad inventory well in advance, Minnich said. Typically coming out of the upfront period in the spring, Disney Advertising is down to \u201csingle-digit avails\u201d for CFP units, he said, the rest of which are then sold in the scatter market.<\/p>\nHeaded into the playoff games on Thursday and Friday, Minnich said he was waiting to sell the final handful of championship ad units until the matchup was locked in, but that he has expectations of a strong audience regardless. Quarterfinal viewership outperformed last year by 14%, with more than 19 million viewers on ESPN. During Thursday night\u2019s game, Miami secured its spot in the championship, which will be played in its home stadium, with a 31-27 win over Ole Miss.<\/p>\n
The longest yard:<\/strong> As of Thursday morning, Minnich said his team was already finalizing contract renewals for the 2027 CFP, when ABC and ESPN also hold the broadcast rights for the Super Bowl. With this year\u2019s Super Bowl, plus the Milano Cortina Games on the horizon, Minnich said he was prepared for some competition for ad budgets, but noted that the CFP has established itself as a tentpole in its own right.<\/p>\n\u201cThe interest is there from a demand standpoint, but I think the audience is following as well,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen record-breaking audiences in [ESPN College] GameDay<\/em> throughout the season, and record-breaking audiences on ABC college football. It\u2019s a yearlong conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nRead the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With less than two weeks to go until the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship, the ad sales team at Disney, which holds the exclusive media rights to the CFP, is \u201cdamn close\u201d to selling out, according to Jim Minnich, SVP of revenue and yield management. Even in a calendar period jam-packed with events like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\n
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