Biden Campaign Spent Big on Sports, Especially the NFL

NFL fans who have been watching the first eight weeks of the league’s season, even casually, have likely gotten used to seeing Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes and Joe Biden on a weekly basis.

That’s because Biden’s presidential campaign made spending on ads during sports broadcasts to promote his candidacy a priority. And he singled out the NFL as the top spot to allocate funds.

Since the NFL season began in September, Biden’s camp has spent $35.8 million in exchange for 119 in-game spots, enough money to make the campaign the league’s 10th biggest advertiser, according to Sportico. The average unit cost of the campaign’s NFL investment, which delivered some 543.7 million impressions, worked out to $193,508 per 30-second increment, Per iSpot.

Though it was a much lower priority, Biden’s campaign also advertised on Saturdays during college football, spending $2.59 million for 61 spots during NCAA games, most of which aired in Big Ten, Big 12 and Mountain West broadcasts.

Biden’s opponent in the presidential race, Donald Trump, spent $9.3 million on 52 in-game airings during the NFL’s first eight weeks, an average cost of around $160,000 per ad.

Ironically, all of the spending may not have provided much bang for the buck, as 20 percent of sports fans polled in a recent MKTG/SRI survey said they were watching less televised sports during the pandemic, Sports Business Daily reported. The reason for the decline? Forty percent of fans said they had “found other things to do” while 33 percent said it was because “sports have become too political.’’