A basketball finds nothing but net during practice before a 2024 NCAA Tournament game at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.

Charles LeClaire | Reuters

Prediction markets saw strong results from the Super Bowl, but it was just an appetizer for a banquet of sporting events in 2026 that are expected to drive surging volumes in event contracts.

Kalshi saw record downloads during Super Bowl week, up 1,544% from the same time period last year, according to a report from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Daily active users jumped more than 1,100% to nearly 2 million on the day of the big game, the firm said.

That was almost three times the daily active users on sportsbook BetMGM, co-owned by MGM and Entain, which had 81% growth to 680,000 daily active users. Polymarket reported 59,000 daily active users and 264% growth over the previous year.

More than $1 billion was traded on Kalshi for the Super Bowl, up 2,700% according to the company. Founder and CEO Tarek Mansour told CNBC Tuesday that consumers are drawn by having lots of trading options for the game in one place.

“Our culture markets were huge this weekend. You know, ‘What [Bad] Bunny was going to perform’ was over $100 million in trading,” he said.

Though prediction markets enable users to buy event contracts for a wide swath of financial, weather, pop culture and other events, sports have been driving the action and the profits.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is pushing back against any investor concerns the Super Bowl was as good as it gets for trading on sports prediction markets.

“What we’re actually seeing is surprising us,” Tenev said on his company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. “In January, for instance, NBA contracts surpassed NFL in trading activity on our platform.”

Major sports events keep rolling, with the Winter Olympics offering a variety of betting options through Feb. 22. This weekend, fans will also get an eyeful during the NBA All-Star Weekend.

March brings college basketball madness, with the NCAA Tournament taking off with Selection Sunday on March 15. The entire tournament typically brings in more gambling dollars than Super Bowl.

And then there’s the World Cup, kicking off 104 games in mid-June.

Kalshi has been aggressive in marketing, outspending Polymarket in the United States by about 19 times and outspending DraftKings by about 35%, according to Sensor Tower estimates.

Still, the American giants in sports betting remain dominant. DraftKings saw 5 million daily active users for the Super Bowl and FanDuel had 4.2 million, according to the Sensor Tower data.

The CEOs of sportsbook market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings both told CNBC just before the game that they don’t see any cannibalization of their traditional sports betting business. They instead see real opportunity with sports and event contracts in states that haven’t legalized sports wagering.

Tenev said events contracts are the “fastest growing business in the company’s history.” Robinhood reported a 300% rise in “other revenue,” which is largely comprised of event contracts.

And the growth is accelerating. Robinhood reported 12 billion event contracts in 2025, and it’s already seen 4 billion contracts so far in 2026.

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes a minority investment.

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Volkswagen is one of three automakers expected to advertise during the Super Bowl in 2026.

Courtesy VW

DETROIT — Automakers are largely sitting on the advertising sidelines during this year’s Super Bowl amid uncertainty in the U.S. automotive industry involving sales, tariffs and regulations.

Carmakers — historically major buyers of ads during the big game — have been inconsistent with advertising during the Super Bowl in recent years, with only a handful putting out spots each year.

“It’s definitely been on the decline,” said Sean Muller, CEO of ad data company iSpot. “Autos are tightening their belts, and they’re probably pulling back on their budgets, and certainly that’s reflected. I think the Super Bowl is a good barometer for all of this.”

Automakers accounted for 40% of Super Bowl ad minutes in 2012, but dropped all the way to 7% by 2025, according to iSpot. Only three automakers are expected to air ads, totaling roughly two minutes, during this year’s game.

Tim Mahoney, a longtime automotive marketing executive, said it’s a balancing act when it comes to Super Bowl advertising. He said a company has to have the right product, ad campaign, and, of course, capital to stand out and get a return on its investment.

“Super Bowl is just a massive platform, but it has gotten so expensive,” Mahoney, who worked for GM, VW, Subaru and Porsche, told CNBC. “There are sometimes interesting ways to navigate around it. … Adjacencies can be smart.”

During Mahoney’s tenure, Subaru became the presenting sponsor of Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl and GM’s Chevrolet brand “blacked out” TV screens just ahead of the Super Bowl for an ad for its in-vehicle Wi-Fi in 2015.

Outside of the Super Bowl, automakers have increased sports advertising and embraced more streaming and regional advertising over national reach, according to iSpot.

“They’re not cutting back in live sports,” Muller said, citing iSpot data that automakers now represent roughly 60% of spend on live sports.

Autos out

Automotive executives who spoke to CNBC about not advertising during this year’s Super Bowl said they were deterred due to the cost — $8 million on average for a 30-second ad — and felt their ad dollars would be better spent elsewhere.

“We are going to really spread our efforts, so money and creativity, over a year,” said Stellantis Chief Marketing Officer Olivier Francois, who is well known for past Super Bowl ads. “There’s no need for a peak or something in February.”

Stellantis, which is in the midst of a company turnaround plan, will focus this year on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. as its major marketing push in addition to more business-oriented spending and a provocative social media campaign for Jeep featuring a singing fish it launched this week.

Nissan Motor, which last advertised during the Super Bowl in 2022, is also experimenting this year with parallel advertising.

The Japan-based automaker on Friday released a comedic, high-energy “Big Game” social media ad promoting a chips-and-dip holder for its Nissan Rogue SUV. The “Nissan Dip Seat” ad stars chef and “The Bear” actor Matty Matheson promoting the fictional product. It also promotes a sweepstakes to win one of the vehicles.

“One of the key things for us is that we wanted to kind of find a way that was more social in nature. It’s been a part of what our overall strategy has been this year,” Nissan U.S. CMO Allyson Witherspoon told CNBC.

Witherspoon declined to discuss the cost of the spot, but confirmed it was less than it would have spent to air a traditional Super Bowl ad.

Others, such as Honda Motor, will look to the Olympics as their major ad spending. Honda is sponsoring U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams for the Winter Games in Milan this year as well as at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

“Super Bowl is one moment in time. The Olympics has so many verticals you can dip into and tell these stories,” said Ed Beadle, who leads marketing for American Honda Motor.

The opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics took place on Friday in Milan. It also kicks off a month that Comcast’s NBCUniversal — which will be airing the Olympics, Super Bowl and NBA All-Star weekend — has coined “Legendary February.”

2026 ads

GM remains a wild card for this year’s game, as the only automaker to not prerelease its ad. The Detroit automaker is using the Super Bowl to launch its Cadillac F1 team, including revealing the look of its first livery car to a national audience.

The automaker last month showed a design prototype of the vehicle in Detroit, including at the city’s auto show, but it has not released any information about the commercial.

Toyota, the NFL’s official automotive partner, is expected to air two 30-second ads focused on family connections.

One called “Superhero Belt” shows a grandson and a grandfather switching roles over the years and telling each other to secure their seatbelts. The other has not been released.

Volkswagen’s ad resurrects the automaker’s well-known 1990s campaign for a new generation of customers, as part of a marketing drive called “The Great Invitation: Drivers Wanted.”

The new campaign, including a 30-second Super Bowl spot, features many of the automaker’s vehicles being driven around to House of Pain’s 1992 hit “Jump Around.”

— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.

Disclosure: CNBC parent Versant is carrying NBC Sports-produced Olympic coverage on its networks, including USA Network and CNBC.

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A Super Bowl LX sign is seen at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco, Friday, Jan. 30, 2026.

Stephen Lam | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images

The Super Bowl is prime real estate every year for advertisers eager to get their brands in front of millions of consumers at once. It’s also costly.

That’s why a small subset of ad space for streaming-only commercials is gaining traction and granting smaller brands time during TV’s biggest night of the year.

Comcast’s NBC broadcast network will air Super Bowl 60 this year, with the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots facing off from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, will simulcast the event. While streaming has generally become the overwhelmingly popular way to consume content, the Super Bowl is still primarily watched via the broadcast network.

The streaming simulcast — gaining viewers each year — features certain ad spots earmarked only for that audience.

Streaming-only spots make up about 10% of the full ad inventory during the Super Bowl and cost about half of what a traditional TV commercial goes for, said Mark Marshall, NBC’s chairman of global advertising and partnerships.

“So cheaper, but still not cheap,” said Marshall. “And part of it is also you don’t have many of these spots, right? So I think people caught on to this trick over the past couple years, and it’s done really well in streaming. And as a result, a lot of people are lining up and wanting to do that.”

Each year the cost of the national ads for the Super Bowl breaks a record. NBC sold out of ad inventory for the Super Bowl, averaging $8 million per 30-second commercial, with between five and 10 ads selling for more than $10 million each, CNBC previously reported.

The streaming-only ads, which still appear nationally, fill the slots that would host regional commercials during the traditional TV broadcast.

These spots bring in new advertisers outside of the mainstays like Budweiser and Lay’s. All of the Peacock-only commercials this year are new advertisers to NBC’s Super Bowl slate, Marshall said. For example, cowboy boots brand Tecovas and family location safety app Life360 both bought streaming-only ad spots this year.

The chief marketing officers for both brands noted the impact of the Super Bowl — as well as steep cost — in explaining their decision to go all in on Peacock.

Tecovas CMO Krista Dalton in an email called the company’s debut via streaming “a deliberate choice,” allowing the brand to get the impact of the Super Bowl with “a highly engaged environment while staying disciplined with our investment.”

Life360 CMO Mike Zeman said via email, “Streaming is a great way for us to test what being integrated into such a monumental cultural moment can deliver to our brand and business. It allows us to reach a massive, highly engaged audience of modern, connected families with an ‘out of pocket’ investment that doesn’t break the bank or occupy too large a percentage of our overall marketing budget.”

Last year nearly 128 million viewers watched the Super Bowl on TV and via streaming, according to Nielsen.

While NBC has had a digital offering for its last four Super Bowl telecasts, Marshall said more advertisers have been vying for streaming space as the platform reached 44 million subscribers.

And fittingly, that growth has been driven largely by NBC’s push into live sports. This month NBC will air the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics — which begin on Friday — along with the NBA All-Star game. It’s a live sports slate the company is billing as “Legendary February.”

“It’s obviously a huge year for NBC, and Peacock is more sold out than usual. We’re seeing a lot of brands leaning in with Peacock,” said Doug Paladino of ad agency PMG.

Paladino noted brands have seen good results advertising during “Sunday Night Football” games that are simulcast on Peacock, particularly due to the audience targeting capabilities on streaming.

The streaming-only commercials can also be something of an on-ramp for burgeoning brands that want to get their foot in the door of the big game.

Last year, direct-to-consumer health startup Ro bought its first ad during the Super Bowl — on Fox’s streaming service Tubi.

“The results that they got out of the Super Bowl for what they paid were an order of magnitude above what the traditional spot is,” said Philip Inghelbrecht, co-founder and CEO of ad tech firm Tatari, which worked with brands to place streaming-only and traditional TV ads in the Super Bowl, including Ro in both 2025 and 2026.

This year, Ro, which offers access to GLP-1 medications and telehealth appointments, ramped up its commitment to the Super Bowl and bought a spot in the traditional game broadcast on NBC. Tennis superstar Serena Williams will anchor the ad.

“Last year we dipped our toes into advertising in the Super Bowl through a buy on Tubi. It was a really attractive chance for us to really understand how our brand and our creative performed in that environment,” said Will Flaherty, senior vice president of growth at Ro.

Smaller brands have other more-affordable options to test the waters, too.

Manscaped, the men’s grooming company, decided to buy a spot before kickoff — a time slot less coveted than during the game itself, but still pricey — to push the next chapter of its business.

Manscaped Super Bowl LX campaign.

Courtesy: Manscaped

“Manscaped is a brand that has been around for a few years now, but we’re at this very important moment in our trajectory, which is a big push for products beyond the groin, which is our first claim to fame,” said Chief Marketing Officer Marcelo Kertesz. “We have something new to communicate to the world.”

“We know the spot itself is just one piece of it, a very important and very expensive piece of it, but it does make sense for us to do that in this moment,” said Kertesz. “It’s a desire I would guess all brands, at some point, have to be on that stage.”

Disclosure: CNBC parent Versant is carrying NBC Sports-produced Olympic coverage on its networks, including USA Network and CNBC.

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A detail shot of the Lombardi Trophy next to Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles helmets prior to a news conference on February 03, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana ahead of the NFL Super Bowl LIX football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Kevin Sabitus | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

The NFL is cracking down on the resale of Super Bowl tickets by players, coaches and club employees.

The league plans to fine more than 100 players and roughly two dozen club employees who were found to be in violation of the NFL’s Ticket Resale policy in connection with Super Bowl 59 tickets, according to an internal memo from the league’s chief compliance officer, Sabrina Perel, that was viewed by CNBC.

An investigation found that those players and personnel were selling these tickets to resale “bundlers” at a profit, according to the memo.

Players will be fined 1.5-times the face value of the tickets they sold, and employees will be fined twice the face value, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named speaking about nonpublic details.

Non-player personnel found in violation of the policy will also lose the ability to purchase future NFL tickets, according to the memo.

The league prohibits employees and players from selling NFL game tickets acquired from their employer for more than the ticket’s face value or more than the employee originally paid — whichever is less.

The league is also taking steps to enhance compliance training ahead of Super Bowl 60 and said it will increase penalties for future offenses.

“No one should profit personally from their NFL affiliation at the expense of our fans,” Perel wrote in the memo.

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