ABC Sports is putting Super Bowl LXI on ABC,, Deportes and Disney+, with alternate telecasts on ESPN2, ESPNU, NFL Network, Disney Channel and Disney XD. That gives viewers more ways to watch, but it also shifts the game away from the local ABC stations that have long counted on it as a rare annual revenue lift.
One station group CEO said a typical affiliate earns about 3 percent of its annual advertising revenue from the Super Bowl when the game airs on its station, while the largest owned-and-operated stations can take in around $10 million from the game alone. Another station group CEO estimated that local advertising revenue tied to the game could fall 35 percent from last year, a cut that lands directly on stations already paying Disney reverse retransmission fees for network programming.
Disney and the affiliate split
Alex Sherman first reported the complaints as local stations that carry said Disney is giving away the Super Bowl on nearly everything else it owns. Disney has the game back on ABC for the first time since 2006, but the new rollout leaves affiliates with a narrower claim to the audience that still reaches them over the air.
Disney says the approach is not unusual. A spokesperson said, “Making marquee live events available via streaming is a well-established industry practice,” and added, “Fox and NBC have recently offered the Super Bowl on Tubi and Peacock, and we’ve similarly streamed The Oscars on Hulu and Dancing with the.”
Tom Brady and Super Bowl LIII
Tom Brady is part of the industry memory here because he was shown celebrating with Mickey Mouse in the Super Bowl victory parade in the Magic Kingdom after Super Bowl LIII. That image fits the company’s long habit of treating the game as a wider Disney event, not just a local broadcast payday.
The difference now is that Disney+ does not have geofenced dynamic ad insertion, so the national ads will be the same on every platform and the Star Wars version will have no ads at all. That removes the one tool that could have let local stations monetize streaming viewers the way other services have done, while the fragmented rollout still sends the same marquee event across multiple Disney-controlled outlets.
Super Bowl LXI revenue math
For affiliates, the math is blunt. If a station normally gets 3 percent of annual advertising revenue from a single Super Bowl airing, then splitting the audience across Disney+ and several alternate broadcasts reduces the pool before a local station can sell it. A 35 percent drop from last year would turn the game from a dependable windfall into a much thinner return.
That leaves the affiliate board with a practical question, not a symbolic one: how much local ad revenue will ABC affiliates actually lose from Super Bowl LXI once every platform and alternate telecast is counted?
