Tubi or Not Tubi: Fox offers a choice with $500,000 Super Bowl ads

For Super Bowl LIX broadcaster Fox, a stream airing on Tubi provides a link to new audiences — and an intriguing new opportunity for advertisers.

The 2025 Big Game will be the first one broadcast on a free, ad-supported TV (FAST) platform. Fox’s ownership of Tubi allows it to achieve that milestone while also opening a fresh batch of ad inventory that can meet the demand for Super Bowl commercials.

To dole out that ad space, Fox is offering a discount to potential buyers. As the cost of a linear Super Bowl spot soars as high as $8 million a pop, FAST ads are going for a fraction of the price. Digiday reported that Fox offered up 15-second Tubi spots for as little as $500,000 apiece, with some agencies receiving that offer as late as January 31.

Advertisers have reportedly been eager to accept Fox’s FAST money, so much so that the broadcaster has carved out additional “floater” units to sell. The popularity of the Tubi spots could have benefits for Fox beyond mere revenue. Sports viewers on streaming are typically served the same ads over and over, so the sellout of the Tubi inventory will add some much-needed variety to the platform’s commercial breaks.

The previous two Super Bowls both achieved streaming viewership records, with CBS’ Paramount+ and NBC’s Peacock benefitting from the growing popularity of digital sports broadcasts. Tubi, which launched in 2014 and was acquired by Fox in 2020, is working with its parent company to make sure the good times keep rolling.

“Fox has been doing live sports forever, and they’ve been streaming them on other properties,” Tubi CMO Nicole Parlapiano told Vulture in an interview. “So, a lot of what we have gone through on the tech side has been leveraging that expertise of the Fox Sports tech team. This is what they do all day, every day, and we’ve been working closely to make sure that all that is in place for the Tubi infrastructure.”

But Tubi is more than just Fox’s counterpart to Paramount+ and Peacock. It has cultivated an audience of 97 million monthly active users who are willing to experience commercial interruptions in exchange for free access to popular content. Even before kickoff, the first Super Bowl broadcast in the FAST lane is already showing the potential of ad-supported streaming services. No wonder major players like Netflix are keen to get in on the action.