Political ad spending on this year’s midterm elections is projected to hit a record-breaking $11.6 billion, and new research shows a much larger share of that money has poured into commercials during sports events, especially football games.

In October, sports accounted for 71% of national political spending on traditional TV commercials, according to the advertising analytics platform iSpot. That’s up from 56% during the 2024 election cycle and 30% in 2022.

Michele Harrison, a managing director at marketing consultancy Ebiquity, said a lot of the political money being spent on sports commercials is going toward local ads. “Sports is kind of a sure thing for getting top viewership in a particular market,” she said.

Within that spending, the most money went to ads during National Football League and college football games. Football accounted for 60% of all election ad spending this month, up from 40% in 2024 and 12% in 2022, according to iSpot.

Political campaigns are taking advantage of strong NFL ratings. The league had average audience of 18.4 million viewers per game so far this season, up 7% from last year, according to Nielsen data. Week 7 of the season had a 21% increase compared to the same period last year.

In September, President Donald Trump used taxpayer money to fund a controversial ad campaign touting his presidency that aired during college and NFL games.

In mid-October, a football game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and last year’s Division I champion the Indiana University Hoosiers saw eight political ads aired, including seven from Republicans and one from Democrats, according to an analysis from news nonprofit Signal Ohio.