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With upfront week presentations giving way to a wave of negotiations, ADWEEK continues our postmortem sit-downs with the presenting ad sales leaders.
Following our conversation with NBCU’s Mark Marshall, next up is Jeff Collins, president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships for Fox Entertainment. This is Collins’ first time leading the Fox upfront after taking over for a retiring Marianne Gambelli earlier this year.
Fox’s upfront presentation from New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on Monday showcased the diversity of the company’s 2024 offerings, with tentpoles including presidential election coverage, Major League Baseball’s upcoming Negro League tribute game, Big Noon college football coverage, Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans, and the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
The company paired those announcements with talent including Tom Brady, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Erin Andrews, Deion Sanders and Gus Johnson.
Following the event, Collins spoke with ADWEEK about the early demand for Super Bowl 59, which is reportedly going for at least $7 million per 30-second ad; how the company is approaching election opportunities in a divisive political climate; and what it was like to lead Fox’s upfront for the first time.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ADWEEK: How was your first time leading the upfront as Fox’s ad sales president?
Jeff Collins: I’m incredibly proud of our team. The client feedback that we’ve received so far has been very strong. I thought the program was very entertaining, but also with a lot of substance, and I think it really demonstrated the full power of all of our brands together and the world-class talent that we have.
The upfront made a point of connecting each element of the portfolio either through transitions or talent. What were you trying to show buyers?
There are a lot of natural connections in our portfolio, so I think the strategy this year was to demonstrate those natural touch points and then show advertisers how they can capitalize on that.
One great example is what we do around Veterans Day, where we have different parts of the portfolio honor our veterans in very different ways, but when you put them together, they are very complementary. The Super Bowl is another great example where we’re able to demonstrate how the full portfolio can come together with Tubi’s purple carpet, around food content and—because it’s down in New Orleans—with entertainment.
Fox is juggling a presidential election and a Super Bowl in one upfront cycle, with a little help from new NFL on Fox announcer Tom Brady. What has his addition done for demand?
We’re very happy with the demand that we’re seeing right now. We’re in active conversations, clients are eager to secure premium positions in the game, and coming off such an incredibly strong year for the Super Bowl—it was a great game, great storylines.
But it’s not just a Super Bowl. It’s year-round. Our sports coverage has been terrific and has scaled incredibly well. We have the NFL, but also MLB, Nascar and soccer. We’re seeing really strong demand across all sports. Having Tom Brady is going to be a huge draw for audiences and for advertisers. He’s incredibly dynamic, as you saw on stage, and he adds a lot in terms of analysis and how he looks at the game in a very unique way that we think is going to be really important for both our audiences and our advertisers.
Does having Brady back in New Orleans—where he played his first Super Bowl in 2002—and Nielsen tweaking its measurements do anything to push ad prices beyond the $7 million for 30 seconds threshold?
We’re excited about all the talent and everyone that we have that’s going to be covering the Super Bowl. We think Tom is going to be an amazing addition. You’re talking about the greatest quarterback of all time.
There’s no comment on the pricing side.
The presidential election can be a thorny sell, but Fox wove it right into the upfront. How comfortable has the company been with approaching advertisers during presidential election years?
Fox has always been very true to who we are. One of the highlights of the program for me was the emotional moment when Ben Hall came out and received a standing ovation from the crowd. That really speaks to heroism. But also pulling in Trey Yingst and showing off some of our strong international coverage in the year when that has been so important was critical for us.
With the election coming up, having Bret (Baier) and Dana (Perino) out there demonstrating where our hard news and journalism come together to cover these really important events, and also demonstrate some of the innovations that we have around our election coverage, was important for advertisers. We had a lot of advertisers that are really leaning in around election coverage because they know the scale of the audience. They know how leaned-in the audience will be.
How are World Cup conversations going, and what does early interest look like?
Very strong so far. We created early conversations that we’re having with a lot of clients that are looking to come in now and do multiyear deals to be able to lock in some of that premium inventory. We have a lot of clients very interested in our Summer of Soccer with Copa [America] and [UEFA] Euro [2024]. So we feel very good about the demand that we’re seeing in that space as well. With a lot of great storylines coming off such an amazing World Cup, we feel really good about where viewership levels are going to be.
In 2023, 10 of the top 20 television broadcasts in the U.S. were Fox NFL showings. The top non-NFL sports broadcast was the Ohio State-Michigan football game on Fox. While the Fox upfront displayed the entire portfolio, did sports’ performance make the upfront an ideal place to emphasize its overall importance?
Sports’ share of overall viewership has increased, so it’s more important than ever before to consumers, and therefore to advertisers. That’s why you’re seeing it getting a larger presence not just at the Fox upfront, but I would assume probably at many of the upfronts that have sports properties.
