Media Buying Briefing: As sports enjoys a moment, buyers find new ways to get in via influencers and CTV

The Paris Olympics, which ended earlier this month generated an audience surge of 30.6 million viewers (Total Audience Delivery) across NBCU, Peacock and other platforms — up 82% from the Tokyo Olympics (16.9 million), per Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

Disney, which owns ESPN, declared sports to be a huge dollar attractor in its recently concluded upfront negotiations, stating: “Sports multiyear deals — up mid double-digits — reflect ESPN’s commitment to delivering fans the best sports coverage across all screens and platforms. Inclusive of women’s sports commitments, up triple-digits vs last year’s upfront, and representing the strength of women’s sports coverage across the entire Disney portfolio.”

Connected TV steals the ball

The surge in sports content across the connected TV landscape has helped democratize it by enabling investment through programmatic means, which lets smaller advertisers buy adjacency where they once were shut out. Sports on streaming and CTV services might also attract a younger audience, which is vital to any rightsholder, said David Levy, co-CEO and equity partner at Horizon Sports & Entertainment.

“They have to fish where the fish are, and if you look at Gen Z, they’re on the streaming services,” said Levy, who noted the major sports finals are still on linear TV for the reason they still deliver the largest audience. “To not be on [CTV] when you’re trying to build your next generation of fans, you need to be there. So it’s not surprising that Amazon’s gotten into the sports space.”

Levy also pointed out the increased targeting ability for brands when buying sports through streamers. “The targeted marketing that an advertiser can now do through streaming services is far greater and wider than they can do through a linear channel or through a cable network,” he said, adding that streaming services also hope that having sports will attract fans who will stick around, thereby reducing subscriber churn.

“The beauty of it is, through these streaming services, we’re able to really hyper-target audiences with audience-led creative so it’s mass reach but making it personal,” said Toni Box, evp of brand experience at Stagwell’s Assembly. “And that for a marketer, is really so appealing because then suddenly we’re more relatable.”

An investment executive at an independent media agency who declined to speak for attribution, said the approach with streamers has both similarities and differences.

“Negotiating for this type of program is not different versus linear TV,” said the exec. “For example, Amazon negotiates the sports packages in a similar way to how we negotiate linear TV with traditional vendors. The difference is that streaming allows for add-ons like addressable targeting capabilities and encompassing the full Amazon suite. Any vendor is going to try and sell any and all of their properties and/or offerings, which is where we’re seeing more bundling overall occur.”

Athletes rising as influencers

But connected TV is far from the only new path available to agencies looking for new ways to link their brands to sports. Athletes themselves and women’s teams are also becoming major draws on social platforms – with 15% of sports media coverage focusing on women, per intelligence company Collage Group. In 2024, Deloitte also expects women’s elite sports will generate more than $1 billion in revenue from sponsorships, new pro leagues and star athletes – marking a 300% increase from the industry estimates in 2021.

In particular, social media interest around athletes continues to grow – with a recent Snap study conducted with independent media agency PMG seeing 43% of users increasing their content consumption related to individual athletes in the past few years. Another 45% of Snap users said content about players’ personal stories made them more invested in them and their sport.

Recent data from user-generated content platform Bazaarvoice also showed 74% of consumers discover new brands while watching the Olympics or following Olympians on social media. Some categories also show a greater reach potential by partnering with gymnasts (54%), swimmers (46%) and basketball players (42%).

“I think that Olympians are perceived more as everyday people than professional athletes in national leagues,” said Zarina Stanford, CMO of Bazaarvoice.

Independent agency Zambezi recently worked with ESPN and WNBA stars, from Caitlin Clark to Kamilla Cardoso in promos for an original documentary series. Jean Freeman, president and CEO of Zambezi, said this new work stems from the growing marketing opportunities for women athletes, from tennis pro Coco Gauff to NFL Flag Football.

“All of the recent wins are social-first campaigns, so not only do we bring the sports and entertainment expertise, we understand how content needs to be distributed today,” Freeman said.

More broadly, she attributes sports growth to the surge in viewership of women’s sports, adding that the agency is already seeing multiple briefs focused on the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 – after seeing successful opportunities throughout Paris this year.

“This increase in viewership and revenue is providing companies with a largely untapped market for advertising,” Freeman added. “With the games returning to the U.S., many brands are already planning to incorporate LA 28 into their long-term marketing strategies.”

HS&E’s Levy agreed women’s sports is having its day. “Right now, women’s sports is on a rampage, hockey stick going straight up — whether it’s basketball, soccer, volleyball, softball,” he said, adding that sports betting around it is helping to draw in larger audiences. “If you bet on something, you’re 95% more likely to watch it, right?”

Expanding sports practice

Even agencies that aren’t known for sports investment are suiting up for the game. Health-focused CMI Media Group is also seeing expanding opportunities to engage its health and fitness part of the business. The WPP-owned strategic media and health care agency in July formed a new health care-focused Sports Marketing Center of Excellence designed to reach its audiences across multiple channels. The agency recently partnered with NHL, Nascar and The Pickleball Slam in guiding clients on how to engage with sports fans about health topics.

Kelly Morrison, group svp of engagement strategy, will co-lead this center as it builds off some client pilot programs on sports viewing and consumer habits. Morrison believes the connection with sports and health care messages is strong – and presents opportunities to showcase personal stories about athletes or family members having certain conditions or focusing on mental health.

“I think sports unite us,” Morrison said. “It gives people something to cheer about, and it is a fun reprieve from a lot that goes on in the world. [For agencies], it’s an untapped market.”

Color by numbers

Even as X faces challenges with advertisers and technical failures, it seems the social platform may be bouncing back a bit. Data intelligence platform Tracer in July tracked year-over-year and month-over month percentage changes in key metrics across digital platforms, including on X, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn. In particular, user engagement on X is back up, and CTRs are climbing 20% with the mixed blessing of surging CPMs as well. –AS

More stats on each platform:

• X is expensive again: After a brief respite, X is back with sky-high CPCs. CPMs are skyrocketing by a whopping 423%.
• Instagram reigns: Meta’s photo-sharing app remains the top performer with a 79% rise in CTRs, while CPMs are also up by 12% from July 2023 to 2024.
• Facebook fades: The OG social network, on the other hand, is struggling as both CTRs and CPMs have dropped by 25%.
• TikTok takes over: Despite threats of a ban, the platform saw steady growth with CPMs up by 11%, in line with recent months. User engagement saw a 47% jump in CTRs from June 2023 to 2024.
• LinkedIn’s great summer: The professional network saw a 35% rise in CTRs from June to July 2024, while CPMs dropped 36% and led to a 53% decrease in CPCs.
• CPMs for most platforms dipped from June to July this year, but Google Ads Search costs are soaring, with CPMs rising 34% from the previous month.

Takeoff & landing

• Attention metrics firm Adelaide received an undisclosed investment from Amperian, Human Ventures and BlueTree, which enabled it to acquire a European data startup called Rita in an all-stock deal.
• Dentsu issued first half 2024 earnings, as it continues to pull out of a slump that’s mainly impacted its Americas operations, which saw organic revenue drop 5%, although Q2 was less of a drop than Q1. The Japan-based holding company is sticking to its forecast of 1% growth for full year ’24.
• Horizon Media struck a deal with Comscore, signing up Proximic by Comscore to provide contextual intelligence data to help the independent continue delivering privacy-resilient targeting at scale for global clients.
• Independent Quad hired Courtney Ballantini to be svp and head of client experience at media agency Rise. She will report to Quad’s head of media Joshua Lowcock.
• Account moves: IPG’s Mediahub landed media duties for Etsy … Independent Court Avenue landed a nine-year contract with the U.S. Air Force … GroupM’s EssenceMediacom landed media duties in India for Bambino Pasta Foods … Dentsu X landed digital media duties for Choice Hotels.

Direct quote

“We definitely had to build on our tech stack, and we had to hire talent to do our buying, our bidding, our planning, etc. But it was an offset in terms of agency labor costs that just came down … As we built out the business case, our speed to market has increased considerably, and our efficiency ratio has also increased considerably. So when you look at the amortization of the cost, the payoff has been a lot quicker versus having that sit at the agency.”

— Andrea Brimmer, CMO of financial services firm Ally, explaining the impact of taking digital media in-house. For more on Brimmer’s thoughts on women’s sports, click here.

Speed reading

• Antoinette Siu looked at the rise of influencers in this year’s election cycle, on both the Democratic and Republican sides. Meanwhile, Sam Bradley delved into how CTV is also benefiting from political advertising.
• Speaking of influencers, Antoinette also broke down the different types influencers and their differing appeal to agencies and marketers.
• Michael Bürgi examined Omnicom media agency PHD’s move to become an in-house organ for its parent company on AI experimentation and learning, spurred in part by research it conducted with WARC.