• It’ll cost you 348 Toyota Supras to buy a 1:30 second ad during Super Bowl LVI
• Put another way, it’ll cost 162 2023 Nissan Zs to air the brand’s film/ad
• Nissan pulled in big names like Dave Bautista for its Super Bowl ad slot

Advertising is everything. There’s a reason you keep seeing those jeans you swear you told your buddy about once on Instagram. That’s doubly true during one of the most-viewed events on American TV: the Super Bowl. That’s why Nissan is going to shell out millions to show you a film (read: ad) starring Dave Bautista and a 2023 Nissan Z. We did the math to see how much it would cost in terms of the Nissan Z’s biggest competitor, the Toyota Supra.

A 30-second Super Bowl ad costs $6 million

My equation will solve for how many Toyota Supras you can buy for the cost of this ad/film. I’ll show my work on the variables, and the equation itself below. Per Variety, the cost of an ad slot for this year’s Super Bowl is roughly $6,000,000 per 30 seconds of air time. Now let’s get the theoretical runtime for Nissan’s Thrill Driver Super Bowl ad.

The preview for the ad (see below) runs 30 seconds long. Given the casting of big names like Dave Bautista, it’s clear Nissan wants to tell a story- with the Nissan Z at the center. I’m figuring Nissan needs about 1:30 seconds or so to show audiences what the Nissan 370Z successor is all about. Let’s also factor in a 30-second cushion for any intros or outros, extra runtime, and other variables. You’ll note my math differs slightly from MotorTrend’s who say the film will cost Nissan roughly $6 million, or 30 seconds of screentime, in addition to using the Z itself for their figures.

• Toyota Supra 3.0 MSRP= $51,640
• 1:30 ad at $6,000,000 per 30 seconds= $18,000,000
• 2:00 ad= $24,000,000
• 18,000,000/51,640= 348.58
• 24,000,000/51640= 464.75

Is 348 Toyota Supras worth it to Nissan?

As we can see based on my math, it’ll cost you 348 Toyota Supras to run Nissan’s film. I rounded down to account for the fact that no one but Elon will sell you half a working car. Let’s suppose it runs even longer. After all, Chrysler’s ad for the Chrysler 200 sedan ran for two minutes. Nissan is betting big on the 2023 Nissan Z, so a longer slot makes sense. If that’s the case (again rounding down), then it’ll cost you 464 Toyota Supras to run a Super Bowl ad about the new Nissan Z.

But we’re forgetting one critical variable: production costs. Unfortunately, this is significantly harder to calculate. I spent a good chunk of my otherwise productive workday trying to figure in production costs, but it just can’t be done. Therefore, as a result, my math is just a minimum. MT’s figure of $6,000,000 is an even lower minimum. It’s truly staggering how much even a “smaller” brand like Nissan is willing to spend for a slice of those sweet, sweet Super Bowl LVI views.

How much is the 2023 Nissan Z?

Metrics aside, that also puts into perspective what a bargain the 2023 Nissan Z will be. With 400 hp for $40K, it’s going to be hard for Toyota’s Supra to compete. Add in the optional manual transmission and the more expensive Supra is more expensive. Really, all that’s left to do is see how good this ad/film is and hope that the new Z Car is at least twice as good.