NFL Hut-Hut-Hikes Up Its Ad Revenue
In our fragmented video landscape, football remains appointment television, and that kind of attention is getting more expensive. EMARKETER estimates the NFL commands nearly 40% of all U.S. sports ad dollars, with the 2025-26 season generating nearly $10 billion in national TV ad sales. Super Bowl spots are already fetching $8-9 million, and prices should continue to climb in conjunction with increasing NFL rights fees. And despite all the talk about streaming, linear TV still owns football: Only 12% of NFL ad revenue went to pure-play streamers last season, while network TV reaped nearly 90%. (EMARKETER: September 4, 2026)
For Consumers, Halloween Means More Than October 31
You probably noticed that even before Labor Day, retail shelves were already filled with Halloween candy, costumes, and decorations. Don’t blame the stores, they’re just responding to demand. According to the National Retail Federation, nearly half of Halloween shoppers start buying before October (up from 34% a decade ago), and one in four started by early August. For many consumers, Halloween has evolved from a one-night event into a full-fledged fall season, with cooler weather often triggering the urge to shop. Brands that wait until October to start talking about Halloween may be spooked to find that consumers have already beaten them to it. NRF: September 1, 2026)
Ad Market Outlook Brightens as Marketers Shift Back to Growth
The outlook for TV advertising looks considerably healthier than it did at the start of the year. IAB has raised its overall 2026 U.S. ad-spending forecast to more than 12% growth, helped in part by a huge year for live television, including the Winter Olympics and World Cup, with the midterms still to come. The bigger story within TV, though, is CTV. IAB now expects connected TV spending to grow 15.6% this year, up from its earlier forecast, while linear TV is projected to decline by just 1.5%. The takeaway: TV advertising isn’t about any particular platform, but following viewers across the video ecosystem, using linear for reach and the impact of major programming, and utilizing CTV for targeting, flexibility, and incremental impressions. (MediaPost: September 10, 2026)
Women’s Sports Are Surging, but Highlight Shows Lag Behind
Women’s sports are booming, but you wouldn’t know it from watching traditional sports highlight shows. A new 35-year study found that women’s sports accounted for just 9.2% of coverage on programs including SportsCenter, CBS Sports HQ, and Big Ten Network’s B1G Today in 2024, barely above the 8.7% recorded back in 1999. SportsCenter did considerably better at 12.5%, while HQ devoted just 3% of its coverage to women. The gap is especially striking given the surging audience and advertiser interest around WNBA and women’s college basketball. For marketers, that disconnect could represent an opportunity: As fan interest outpaces traditional coverage, brands have an opportunity to get into women’s sports while the category still offers room to stand out and reach audiences that may be underserved by the broader sports media machine. (Sports Business Journal: September 8, 2026)
This Week In Video History
September 12, 1981 – Saturday Morning Welcomes the Smurfs
At 8:30 am on a Saturday 45 years ago, NBC was inundated by little blue Belgian creatures. The Smurfs, created by Pierre “Peyo” Culliford, were already a merchandising phenomenon in America, and the show became a major hit for NBC. The series ran for an unusually long nine seasons, and the franchise remains strong to this day.
There’s a bit of marketing history here as well. The Smurfs was an early example of a character brand moving from European intellectual property to a U.S. merch craze to a network TV franchise to an even bigger tchotchke business. Toys and figurines had already created awareness, and television turned that into a mass-market juggernaut. The franchise continues generations later, and a feature film was released just last year. Revisit your childhood (or experience your parents’) with the first episode.
