NEW YORK, February 26, 2024 — Women now make up nearly half of Super Bowl viewership, yet advertising during the Big Game still largely misses the mark when it comes to representing them as central figures. In 2024, viewership among women aged 18-24 jumped by a reported 24%, signaling a significant shift in who’s tuning in.
Beyond the ‘Swift Effect’: Why Super Bowl Ads Still Miss Women
The Super Bowl audience is evolving, but advertising hasn’t caught up, leaving marketers to wonder if they’re truly reaching their target consumers.
- Female viewership of the Super Bowl has been steadily increasing for five years, even before the attention brought by Taylor Swift’s relationship with Travis Kelce.
- Women comprise 49% of Super Bowl viewers, yet only 28% of ads featured women in a central role in 2024—a decrease from 32% in 2023.
- Ads with women in speaking or narrating roles declined from 64% in 2023 to 54% in 2025.
- Women control approximately 85% of household purchasing decisions, making them a crucial demographic for advertisers.
While Taylor Swift’s presence at Kansas City Chiefs games undoubtedly amplified attention, the NFL had already been experiencing double-digit growth in female viewership for five years, according to Marissa Solis, svp of global brand and consumer marketing for the NFL. “In those last five years, even before the Taylor Swift effect, we’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth in female fandom and viewership,” Solis said.
What percentage of Super Bowl viewers are women? Women now represent 49% of the Super Bowl audience, a substantial portion often overlooked by advertisers, according to data from market research firm Zappi.
Zappi’s data reveals a concerning trend: while women appeared in 78% of Super Bowl ads last year, only 28% showcased them in a central role. This is a drop from 32% in 2023. Furthermore, the number of ads featuring women with speaking or narrating roles decreased from 64% to 54% between 2023 and 2025.
“Women are now half the audience, but rarely the center of the story in the ads,” Nataly Kelly, chief marketing officer at Zappi, explained. “So they’re on screen, but they’re not driving the narrative.” Zappi’s data assesses ad performance based on attention-grabbing qualities, emotional resonance, and purchase intent.
Interestingly, Zappi found that women generally prefer ads with broad appeal. Four of the top five ads ranked by women also appeared in the overall top five. In contrast, only two of the top-ranked ads among men made the overall top five.
Given that women control roughly 85% of consumer purchasing decisions, there’s a clear incentive for advertisers to create ads that resonate with them, Kelly emphasized. “Women are the ones making most of those purchasing decisions on behalf of their households,” she said. “These ads in the Super Bowl don’t seem to acknowledge that yet.”
The Super Bowl Isn’t a Niche Event
The long-held assumption that the Super Bowl primarily attracts a male audience is a miscalculation advertisers have made for decades, argued Derek Rucker, professor of advertising strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “Twenty years ago, the split wasn’t even that pronounced—there were lots of women watching,” Rucker said.
Advertisers who fail to recognize the broad demographic reach of the Super Bowl are missing opportunities, he explained. Spending as much as $10 million for a 30-second ad slot warrants a strategy aimed at a wide audience. “You’re paying for 100 million people,” Rucker said. “If you have a niche-focused product or a niche-focused ad, don’t use the Super Bowl.”
