A Push into Sports Rights Requires Streaming-Specific AdsCase Study
Media companies are pouring billions into live sports rights. But when Coco Gauff is playing in primetime at the US Open, and the screen reads “We’ll be right back,” something’s gone wrong.
Even the most high-profile sports moments are still being underserved on streaming. The root of the problem is that most media companies are applying old-school monetization tactics to a completely different format.
The infrastructure gap
Too often, broadcasters are still selling linear-first ad buys and then piping those ads into streaming with no adjustments. When a brand blocks a DMA or doesn’t have creative for CTV, that impression goes unfilled. No backup plan. No in-stream alternative.
That kind of setup might fly during a rerun of a sitcom. But when you’re dealing with live sports, which are high-attention, high-value, highly monetizable moments, it’s a massive miss. This is how revenue seeps through the cracks. When this happens at scale, it’s a major missed opportunity.
The stakes are higher than ever
ESPN is investing heavily in its new direct-to-consumer app. Fox has it’s major new platform, Fox One.
Tens of millions of impressions are on the line every weekend, no matter what sport is in season. Advertisers want them. Viewers are showing up. But unless you have the infrastructure to properly sell and deliver into streaming environments, you’re leaving value on the table.
Subscription alone won’t cover the cost of sports rights. And neither will outdated ad models.
What media companies need
We can’t just copy and paste TV tactics onto streaming. We need:
- Dedicated sales models for digital
- Ad formats built for the stream, like Picture-in-Picture, L-Bar, and context-aware overlays
- Server-side ad insertion (SSAI) that ensures delivery even when direct-sold campaigns fall short
This is exactly the infrastructure Transmit is built to provide. We create incremental inventory inside the stream that monetizes high-value moments without interrupting the viewer experience.
The bottom line
Audiences are turning to streaming more than linear to watch live sports for the first time ever. Advertisers want to meet those audiences in high-attention moments. Media companies need to invest in streaming as a long-term strategy.
But if we don’t solve the monetization layer, those big bets won’t pay off.
Streaming is a different game. The sooner we build for it, the better we’ll play.
