With the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics around the corner, and the FIFA World Cup kicking off this summer, broadcasters and advertisers are warming up for a busy year of sports. In a fragmented CTV market, live events still command large simultaneous audiences, and advances in programmatic capabilities are increasingly enabling advertisers and agencies to reach those fans in real-time.
This week Paramount has announced it will offer live, in-game programmatic buying within marquee sporting events, starting with UFC’s debut on the Paramount+ streaming service. The announcement follows Paramount’s acquisition of the UFC rights last summer, shelling out $7.7 billion for the seven-year mixed martial arts (MMA) contract. The fights start on Paramount+ on 24th January with UFC 324: Gaethje vs Pimblett.
Select commercial ad units will be available to buy programmatically via Amazon DSP, Google’s Display & Video 360, The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP. Paramount will offer private marketplace, biddable ad inventory for UFC’s full slate of Numbered Events preliminaries and Fight Nights in the US. The broadcaster will sell all Numbered Event main cards as Streaming Fixed Units, the company’s ad placements for specific episodes of streaming TV.
Clinching a deal
The US broadcaster said the announcement marks the first time advertisers can secure a real-time, guaranteed placement in premium sports on the streaming service. It follows the appointment of Jay Askinasi as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), who joined Paramount from Roku back in October.
“This initiative underscores Paramount’s commitment to media modernisation, expanding opportunities for marketers to show up during the biggest and buzziest moments of scaled audience attention,” said Askinasi. “By bringing guaranteed positions to the streaming sports stage, both directly and programmatically, we’re widening the aperture for more advertisers to tap into the passion, energy and engagement of live sports with the agility, optimisation and precision of digital.”
Let the games begin
The programmatic offering makes Paramount the latest US broadcaster to get in on the live sports action. Last week, NBCUniversal announced its Olympic Winter Games inventory will be accessible in Google DV360, which in turn added new bidding capabilities for live sports packages. NBCU also announced it is running tests of agentic media trading to automate live sports inventory on linear TV, using AI to respond to briefs from advertisers looking to reach sports fans in live environments.
And moves from agencies are also signalling strong demand from clients looking to advertise around live sports. Earlier this month, agency holdco WPP launched WPP Sports, a “unified sports and gaming practice” designed to tap into rising advertiser demand for live sports.
The next day, US agency group Stagwell unveiled a specialised business unit called SPORT BEACH, named after the Cannes hotspot it launched in 2023. Stagwell’s share price has jumped 40 percent since the announcement, suggesting the company’s positioning as a sports specialist is resonating with investors.
Follow VideoWeek on LinkedIn.
