We can probably expect CBS’s cameras to focus at least a dozen times on Taylor Swift in an Allegiant Stadium luxury suite during Super Bowl 58.
Those flashes of the pop superstar, her friends and probably Travis Kelce’s family on Sunday won’t amount to much more than 30 or 45 seconds of the Chiefs-49ers game. But her presence — assuming she makes her flight from Tokyo — could drive the game’s highest viewership ever.
Shortly after the Chiefs claimed their fourth AFC championship in five years, interest in all things Super Bowl vaulted over last year’s numbers, according to data collected by Zeta Global (ZETA), an AI-powered marketing cloud.
Zeta Global monitors trillions of bits of information created by U.S. consumers daily to uncover trends. They found Americans’ interest in the game is up 169% over last year, while interest in the game’s commercials have jumped 903% over February 2023.
“You’re seeing a massive indication of people who are interested in the commercials,” said Zeta Global CEO David Steinberg. “I surmise a big chunk of that is women.”
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Steinberg also speculates that all the added interest could translate into the highest viewership ever for Sunday’s game in Las Vegas. Last year’s 113.7 million TV viewers were second only to the 114.4 million in 2015, according to superbowl-ads.com.
Swift will likely bring a legion of new or more-interested viewers to this year’s broadcast on CBS, Paramount Plus and Nickelodeon. Viewership for all NFL games jumped 7% this season, Nielsen reported. A key part of that increase: Viewership among 12- to 17-year-old girls rose 8.1%.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has welcomed the new fans drawn in by Swift and Kelce’s relationship.
“(Swift) knows great entertainment, and I think that’s why she loves NFL football,” Goodell said Monday in his annual pre-Super Bowl news conference. “I think it’s great to have her a part of it. Obviously, it creates a buzz. It creates another group of young fans, particularly young women.”
The potential boost to the NFL’s and its advertisers’ bottom lines probably doesn’t hurt either.
Even before the Chiefs started the season, Swifties were starting to load up on the team’s gear, tickets and NFL Plus subscriptions, according to Sports Innovation Lab research. Among their findings of more than 90,000 Swift fan’s purchases:
◾ In August when Swift and Kelce were first linked, Swift fans tripled their Chiefs-related purchases.
◾ Swift’s first appearance at a Chiefs game in September coincided with record single-day transactions by all NFL fans. Sports Innovation Lab combined everything from NFL Shop purchases to Sunday Ticket subscriptions to Super Bowl purchases.
CBS reported the Chiefs’ upset of the Ravens was the most-watched in AFC Championship game in its history, averaging just under 55.5 million viewers at the start of the game. Kelce and Swift sealed the victory with a kiss seen throughout social media.
“(Swift) is aspirational for most girls,” Steinberg said. “They’re major fans of hers. And that’s translating to a massive halo effect – not just for the Super Bowl, not just for viewership of the Super Bowl, but for the ads that are running in the Super Bowl.”
Among the usual mix of Budweiser clydesdales, E-trade babies and various snacks, are three ads clearly focused on female consumers: Dove, e.l.f. Cosmetics and newcomer NYX Professional Makeup.
Of course, women’s interest in the NFL and the Super Bowl has been more of a multi-decade evolution rather than a Taylor Swift revolution. Still, Swift may be driving more women to watch.
“For the first time in history, you’re at almost 50% female viewership,” Steinberg said. He says the growth in female viewership can be traced back through rise in must-see advertising through NFL’s greater emphasis on halftime shows.
The upsurge in interest, though, will have little impact on CBS’s bottomline.
CBS cashed out its chips for this game in Las Vegas in November. The network reportedly sold all its advertising slots weeks before the game for an average of $7 million per 30-second spot, according to Variety. That ensured they wouldn’t be scrambling like Fox did last season to sell all of the final ad slots. It also ensured they can’t take advantage of the Swift effect and an advertising jackpot.
Of course when CBS took the money and ran, the Chiefs were stumbling. They lost four of six games from Oct. 29 to Dec. 10. Some even blamed Swift for their troubles. It looked more likely that Kelce would be swaying with a bunch of Swifties in Japan than catching passes against the 49ers.
The average cost of a 30-second spot was also $7 million for Super Bowl 57. With 113.4 million TV viewers last year, that worked out to about 6 cents per viewer. By comparison, 18.8 million watched the Oscars last year where ads cost between $1.6 million and $2.1 million, or 10 to 12 cents per viewer.
Should viewership top 118 million on Sunday, the cost of an ad will tick just under 6 cents per viewer for the first time since 2016 when 30-second ads averaged an inflation-adjusted $6.2 million.
