Ads aired during the NFL’s streaming-exclusive games are 66% more effective at driving consumer engagement than their counterparts on traditional television, according to a new report from analytics firm EDO. The findings show how the league's focus on digital platforms is creating a new and powerful advertising tier that outperforms even the dominant linear broadcasts.
The multiplier effect: The NFL’s advertising supremacy is on full display in the report, which finds a single regular season ad has the impact of 23 typical TV spots—a multiplier that leaps to 109x for the playoffs and explodes to more than 1,000x for the Super Bowl. In other words, a regular season ad is 19% more effective than a typical primetime spot, but that advantage skyrockets to 243% during the Super Bowl, a market EDO estimates generates $5.2 billion in annual ad revenue.
Streaming's big score: The league’s streaming partners are delivering huge returns for advertisers. According to Adweek's analysis, Peacock’s exclusive Brazil game outperformed the primetime average by 116%, while Amazon’s Black Friday game drove 51% more engagement than the NFL’s Thanksgiving day broadcasts. Netflix’s first Christmas Day games gave entertainment advertisers an 84% boost in ad effectiveness, while pharma brands saw a 70% lift.
A measurement feud: But even as the league touts its streaming success, it's publicly sparring with longtime measurement partner Nielsen. As reported by Deadline, NFL chief data officer Paul Bellew recently accused the firm of "under-counting" viewership for big events, claiming its formula misses as many as 20 million viewers for the Super Bowl alone. That frustration is pushing the league to look elsewhere, and it has signaled it's "intrigued" by rival measurement firms like VideoAmp.
The NFL has successfully created a premium advertising environment in streaming that commands high value, but the public battle over viewership numbers shows that proving that value to advertisers is becoming a contentious, high-stakes fight. Meanwhile, some brands are finding that good creative has a long shelf life, with a Capital One ad featuring John Travolta as Santa topping the finance category for a second straight year. In other strategic moves, the NFL is reportedly nearing a deal to bring regular season games to free-to-air TV in the UK and Ireland for the first time. And some advertisers are going all-in on a single platform, with one report finding 62 brands chose to advertise exclusively on Amazon Prime Video during the last NFL regular season.
