Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

Despite intensifying winds of change sweeping through the advertising industry, live sports is still the safest port in the storm, offering a growing array of options, from old-school in-stadium signage to newer ads in live-streamed Web video of the World Series, March Madness, the Super Bowl and the Olympics.

As live sports are arguably the most coveted content, and multiplatform distribution to larger screen smartphones and a sea of tablets have become a reality, opportunities abound for advertisers as never before. How else could sky high and climbing content licensing deals continue and leave room for princely profit?

It’s important to note that not all video viewers are interested in sports programming on any device, and others may have a passing interest in only landmark events like the Olympics (and only tune in to the Super Bowl to rate the ads). And championships between two cities’ teams can fall short of delivering a truly national audience. Advertisers use other - and often more affordable - content types to reach this audience.

With sports, as will be on display as the World Series begins, old school approaches have stood the test of time and the strong winds of change in advertising options as is witnessed by in-stadium signage. Some years ago, the then CMO of Anheuser-Busch was playing it safe as online and mobile advertising were being thrown around like warm-up pitches.

Fear and Spending

Then fearful of ad skipping options and technologies, the beverage colossus continued to buy space on the wall behind the batter, catcher and ump at home plate in baseball games because it could not be seen. Nowadays advertisers (Amica Insurance in Boston) sponsor pitch zones, which are part of the programming that can’t be skipped or deleted.

These same advertisers follow and integrated media plan that augments the above mentioned options with traditional broadcast TV ads, where they can push more than their names throughout a live contest. In baseball, advertisers also take a feel good win-win by donating money for each home run, save, stolen base etc. to a charity and have their name read during the in-game telecast.

Opportunity Knocks (Again)

Where once we scoffed at watching live sports and other long-form content on screen-size-challenged mobile devices, we’ve seen a 180 shift in smartphones, and a virus-like spread of larger tablets that makes viewing video programming – and ads – a different type of gold rush.

The huge work-in-progress starts with the content as was underscored by relatively low engagement times on mobile devices during last year’s March Madness annual multi-week college basketball tournament. The average total engagement was about an hour.

Fans viewing the contests, many of which took place during the day and afternoon, stayed connected longer, driven annually by viewing from the workplace on laptops thanks to the Internet. This helped make this sporting tournament one of the most watched live events online well over a decade ago, thanks in large part to the content distribution brains and brawn of Akamai (News - Alert) Technologies in partnership with CBSSports.

Ads for All?

Content owners, distributors, advertisers and others continue to forge forward in their ongoing march to deliver ad opportunities in streaming content, especially live streaming sports. By extending viewer engagement times through the delivery of a quality viewing experience, there’s much hope for advertisers looking to diversify. Taking last year’s Super Bowl mobile teaches us much.

The viewers’ willingness to watch different types of ads will come later. How ads are sold beyond traditional broadcast TV and on websites may need to evolve as last year’s March Madness focused in part on sponsorships and sent the same programming with the same ads out beyond TVs to other devices. An all-inclusive model approach like this doesn’t seem optimal when considering the rapid proliferation of smartphones and tablets. Stay tuned.

The Perfect Storm

Many professional sports leagues (MLB (News - Alert), NHL etc.), realizing the potential to take live sports well beyond big-screen (not smart TVs), already have Web portals with live streaming content and happy advertiser customers. Broadcasters are looking to capitalize on live sports outside the TV box (Fox and NBC) by launching their own sports “networks.”

ESPN3 was launched to address global online viewer demand for live sports programming. The NFL launched NFL Network (one channel and gave it live football games to broadcast), which looks smarter now with more folks watching games at home, resulting in a continued decline in actual attendance for several years now.

Big screens in homes and other venues impinge on event attendance in some instances. Add the introduction of Google’s (News - Alert) Chromecast $35 dongle that makes dumb screens smart TVs, and you can expect that trend to continue for those that can’t or just don’t want to be in the seats for sports contests. This works to the advantage of advertisers for now and to those looking to stream Web content to a far larger viewing audience.

The Bottom Line

With Fox charging roughly $4 million for 30-second ad spots during the Super Bowl this February, the Winter Olympics hitting later that month in faraway Sochi, Russia and the ad industry throwing an all-out blitz to find ways to effectively deliver marketing messages to those with smartphones and tablets, it’s easy to understand why live sports is still the safest port during winds of change.

That’s because this coveted live content offers an array of proven and time-tested ad opportunities today, along with magnetic opportunities that are still essentially works-in-progress that need to be optimized for maximum results and stronger consideration.

The rise of broadcaster-built sports networks, along with continually greater use of the Web for streaming content to wired devices, with delivery of ads to smartphones, tablets and smallish laptops with wireless connections collectively paint a very promising picture for this hugely anticipated broadband business bonanza.

What you see during the World Series in the days ahead, in pro sports later this fall and in February should give advertisers and consumers a high-def picture of where we are in the evolution of viewing, marketing and messaging.

Game on!

By:

  
Bob Wallace,  VP of Content


Edited by Alisen Downey