The MVP Of Super Bowl Ad Sales

CBS president and chief advertising revenue officer Jo Ann Ross has overseen six Big Games, and has the dramatic stories to prove it.

- Jason Lynch

The New England Patriots’ Bill Belichick will be heading into his ninth Super Bowl on Sun-day, tops among all NFL head coaches. And among current TV ad sales chiefs, his counterpart is CBS’ Jo Ann Ross, who has headed up network ad sales for CBS since 2002. For Ross, now president and chief advertising revenue officer, this is the sixth Super Bowl she is overseeing, more than all of her peers combined.

As she put the finishing touches on this year’s sales, Ross looked back on the most memorable moments of her six Super Bowls, from the other big controversy during the Janet Jackson halftime show to the year she secretly battled cancer to her showdown with the brand that decided to sit out the game for the first time in 23 years.

Super Bowl XXXVIII (2004)

THE OTHER HALFTIME SHOW CONTROVERSY

New England Patriots 32, Carolina Panthers 29

Average price per 30-second spot: $2.3 million

(All data from Kantar Media except where noted.)

Heading into her first big game as head of ad sales, “all eyes were on us, because it was the first Super Bowl under new sales management,” says Ross, who wasn’t daunted by the assignment. After all, “I oversaw the [Winter] Olympics”—which used to air on CBS—“and that’s like 18 days. And I have a great sales team.”