"Between the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, March Madness, NBA All Star game and soccer's World Cup, the sporting planets are aligned for a blockbuster media season through this summer. Media owners and broadcasters (especially NBCU, which holds the rights to several of the biggest live sports events this spring) are thrilled about the coming windfall. Dentsu's 2026 forecast report estimated that live sports spending would push overall global advertising to reach $1.04 trillion this year."
"Take Hyundai, for example. The car maker chose not to run a Super Bowl spot this year, instead opting to run a campaign supporting the launch of the latest Palisade SUV throughout the NFL season and during the playoffs that ended in late January. It has a long-running partnership with FIFA, and plans to take advantage of the World Cup come June."
Major live sports events — the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, March Madness, NBA All Star Game and World Cup — create a concentrated media season through summer. Broadcasters expect large ad revenue gains; Dentsu forecasted global advertising could reach $1.04 trillion driven by live sports, and Disney reported a 10% rise in operating income from sports ads in Q1 2026. Advertisers must choose between spreading budgets across many events or concentrating on a few. Hyundai skipped the Super Bowl to support a Palisade launch and leverage its FIFA partnership for the World Cup. Brands like Nike and DoorDash also skipped the Big Game. Dollar Shave Club redirected its Super Bowl budget to Meta, TikTok and streamers after NBC rejected its creative for profanity.
Read at Digiday
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