Disney has some ambitious plans for the Super Bowl LXI in 2027, and they include charging advertisers $10M to run a 30-second clip. It is a big jump when you compare it to the $5M charged for the same time in 2016, but not so much when compared to around $8M for Super Bowl LX (2026). Yet, the company wants to make it historic because this isn’t another rotation year, simply seeing a steady climb in prices.

It will be the first-ever Super Bowl broadcast on ESPN. ABC hasn’t aired one since 2006, and Disney wants to prove it can match Fox/NBC/CBS revenue success on the biggest stage. The network is clearly positioning this as a premium milestone broadcast rather than just another entry in the NFL’s rotation cycle, which helps explain why it believes the higher pricing benchmark is justified.

However, the early negotiations already suggest that the plan may not be landing exactly as intended. According to Brian Steinberg of Variety, Disney has informed advertisers that it believes a 30-second ad during its Super Bowl LXI broadcast should cost $10 million, but early talks show there’s a noticeable gap. A source mentioned to Variety that “there’s a big difference between their starting point and where advertisers are hoping to land,” specifically referring to that $10 million request.

Additionally, Disney is said to be asking for more commitments, as it “also wanted a $10 million match of funds to be used in other areas of its media offerings,” which includes deals related to things like MLB.TV and Monday Night Football. Such bundled commitments are increasingly common in Super Bowl negotiations, where broadcasters try to convert interest in the Big Game into broader portfolio-wide advertising deals rather than single-event purchases.

There’s a bit of hope to hold onto. NBC successfully sold some ad spots for more than $10 million during Super Bowl LX. The main difference, though, is in how they approached it. NBC started selling ads at around $7 million, which created a lot of interest right away and helped drive prices up as the available spots became fewer. By the time inventory tightened closer to the game, stronger demand helped push select placements into record territory rather than relying on a high opening benchmark.

Most of the ad spots for that game ended up costing between $7 million and $8 million. This is important to note, especially since Steinberg points out worries that Disney doesn’t have a Super Bowl sales expert, someone who has handled sales for the Big Game for several years. That matters because networks typically begin negotiations with long-time “incumbent” advertisers who previously held Super Bowl positions, many of whom expect preferred pricing tied to multi-year commitments and higher overall spending volumes.

This lack of experience might influence how the negotiations go. And Disney’s bold pricing strategy might run into some pushback as discussions move forward. Plus, their lack of experience with Super Bowl broadcasts brings in some extra doubt. There are also signs that Disney has not yet matched the early momentum typically seen before the industry’s annual upfront sales window in May, when rival broadcasters in recent years had already secured roughly 40% to 60% of their Super Bowl inventory.

Still, the company clearly aims to match the kind of ad revenue success Fox achieved last season. Disney executives are continuing active conversations across the market and, according to people familiar with negotiations, the company is seeing strong requests for inventory even if those discussions have not yet translated into finalized commitments.

The timing of Super Bowl LXI could also strengthen Disney’s broader pitch. The game will air on February 14, 2027, Valentine’s Day, with Presidents’ Day following immediately after, creating what executives see as an extended holiday viewing window around one of the biggest live television events of the year.

Disney’s rights agreement with the NFL also allows the company to present the game across multiple platforms, including simulcasts on ABC and ESPN, along with an alternate presentation on ESPN2 featuring Peyton and Eli Manning. That wider distribution strategy gives Disney additional flexibility in how it packages advertising inventory across its networks.

The Super Bowl is also expected to anchor an unusually dense stretch of major live programming for Disney in early 2027, with the College Football Playoff, the Oscars, and the Grammys all scheduled within roughly an eight-week span. Taken together, those events form part of a broader advertising window that the company has already been promoting to marketers as a rare concentration of large-scale live audiences.

Even so, if negotiations stretch too close to the upfront market without firm commitments, some advertisers could choose to redirect budgets toward other premium inventory instead of holding funds specifically for Super Bowl placements, one of the risks that comes with opening talks at such an aggressive price point.

That risk becomes easier to understand when viewed against how other broadcasters have recently handled Super Bowl inventory, especially the kind of revenue success Fox Corporation managed to generate the last time it carried the game.

Fox generated over $800 million in Super Bowl ad revenue last season

Fox’s success with Super Bowl LIX wasn’t only about having a huge audience; it also brought in a lot of money. Just a day after sharing their viewer numbers, the network announced they made over $800 million from ads on Fox, Fox Deportes, and Tubi. This amount really highlights how important the Big Game is for TV networks.

Meanwhile, Fox leadership did not hold back in celebrating the moment.

“The clear winners Sunday night were the Eagles, the NFL, and Fox,” Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. “Congratulations to our teams at Fox Sports and Tubi for a record-breaking and historic Super Bowl LIX.”

More than 10 ads went over the $8 million mark for 30 seconds, and the average price reached about $7.5 million. For comparison, CBS was looking for around $6.5 million per ad in 2024, showing just how fast things have changed. Since Fox sold out all its ad spots well before the game started, it turned out to be a big financial success.

The viewership numbers really supported those high prices. The game hit a peak of 135.7 million viewers in the second quarter, surpassing last year’s average of 123.4 million. Tubi alone attracted 13.6 million viewers, and total streaming reached 14.5 million, which is the highest ever for a Super Bowl.

Meanwhile, the platform saw 24 million unique users throughout the day with its expanded coverage.

As we look to the future, Fox really took advantage of its Super Bowl opportunity. The network broadcast Super Bowl 59 as part of the NFL’s rotating deal with NBC, ABC, ESPN, and CBS. Since Fox won’t get to air the game again until 2029, they definitely made the most of this chance in terms of audience and earnings.