By Anabella Chiossone Rodriguez 
In 2024, global sports advertising spend is set to eclipse $61 billion (USD) according to WARC Media. Advertisers are forecast to spend $2 billion targeting sports audiences at the Paris Olympics. UEFA Euro 2024, meanwhile, is predicted to headline an incremental lift in yearly ad spend in Europe, despite declining linear TV spend in markets like the UK and Germany. Additionally, a recent survey conducted by Ad Age and Harris Poll found that Copa América has achieved the third-highest growth in brand equity amongst Gen Z, surpassing brands like Coca-Cola and Toyota.
When targeting sports audiences, programmatic advertising has become a golden channel. Today, sports audiences increasingly turn to digital channels to consume live sport. Research by Capgemini shows that 70% of sports fans prefer to consume content on smartphones.
Programmatic advertising enables advertisers to target sports audiences in a timely, contextual and cost-effective way, buying the right ad inventory at precisely the right time. A demand-side platform (DSP) facilitates bidding for inventory placements across display, video, CTV, audio and digital out-of-home (DOOH).
With a winning media buying strategy, advertisers can unlock the power of fandom at scale and become a meaningful part of the live sports conversation. With the third-party cookie now set to be phased out entirely by 2025, a new sports advertising ecosystem is emerging and audience data and knowledge of sports are crucial.
Targeting sports audiences
Sports audience engagement is unique. For example, the device a fan uses will vary depending on whether they’re watching a live game, consuming highlight clips, analysing player stats or browsing for team news updates.
96% of sports fans have used a second device while watching live sport (GWI). This shows a clear shift away from traditional channels such as linear TV, and the fragmented nature of sports engagement means that sports audience data is essential to target fans on the correct devices at key moments. However, each device has its own unique data identifiers, meaning targeting fans is easier said than done.
In the post-cookie world, fan identity graph solutions will fill the void left by cookie data. Fan identity profiles enable marketers to effectively track online behaviour across different platforms, mapped into singular user profiles by matching unique identifiers.
By tying online and offline data together, these identity graphs can more effectively reach consumers across different platforms (think social, web, and mobile apps) and devices (like mobile, tablet, and smart TVs). But sports marketers in particular need even more robust data to really understand and reach their fans. By understanding more in-depth sports context, marketers can better reach sports audiences with team and league specific data and start to create a more bi-directional conversation with the fan, rather than a uniform media buying strategy.
For example, an LA Rams fan might have bought a Las Vegas Raiders jersey for a friend, a fan-driven identity solution would recognise this and ensure that fan is not targeted by programmatic advertising designed to reach Rams fans. Rather than rely on last-touch signals, which only give a limited view of user behavior, a more comprehensive identity solution would holistically consider the lifetime history of that fan, to fully understand their likes and preferences.
One such solution is Genius Sports’ FanHub ID which takes different data signals from first-party and third-party audiences. When these fan data parameters are plugged into a DSP this ensures that the delivery of each ad is served with the message and in the format that best suits the fan. You can learn more about how to target sports audiences using a fan identity graph on Genius Sports’ webinar. Watch here.
Sports audience segmentation
Once you’re able to identify each fan’s behaviour across devices, the next stage is to refine these audiences based on what matters to the advertiser.
By leveraging rich audience data, advertisers can target sports audience on programmatic advertising channels based on unique fan identifiers. These include:
- Favourite team or player
- Personality traits
- Lifestyle choices
- Location
Meanwhile, sports-centric custom bidding models can leverage identity data from solutions like FanHub ID to extrapolate audience insights at scale and help you find similar sports audiences that match the audience type you’re looking for.
By integrating all this with a DSP, you can efficiently manage your ad campaigns, targeting the identified audience segments with precision. What’s more, all this is done in a privacy-compliant way that keeps these identities fully anonymous, while still providing the personalisation that fans have come to expect.
The right fan message every time
When targeting sports audiences with programmatic advertising, timing is everything. If you serve adverts even a few seconds out of sync with what is happening on the field, they risk not resonating with the fan at all. Moments like goals and touchdowns evoke powerful emotion. The best programmatic advertising harnesses this fandom by integrating the brand with the key actions in the game.
Imagine, you’re a Manchester United fan watching the big Premier League match versus Liverpool. Marcus Rashford scores and fans instantly turn to their preferred sports publisher, seeing a contextualised display banner with the live score and relevant discount offer delivered by your brand. This is the power of layering real-time sporting context into your programmatic media buying strategy.
How is this possible? Once you’re armed with sports fan identity signals, a view of engagement habits and the right audience segments, the next step is to nail your targeting.
Sports-centric media buying technology, like ours at Genius Sports, includes pacing algorithms that align hourly budget weightings with the sporting calendar. When paired with your creative strategy, this enables you to programmatically serve ads at high-impact times, based on:
Team roster news – Online fan data shows traffic spikes on social media sites and on rights holders’ digital properties when team news drops before a game, as fans refresh their social media feeds and dissect any news with other fans.
During breaks in play – Timeouts, halftime and increasingly VAR checks are lull periods when fans will head online to look at in-game stats or discuss the in-game action online.
After a goal or touchdown – Harnessing the passion of fans and being part of the moment is why so many advertisers choose sport as the medium to reach consumer audiences. These periods are also key consumption moments and by combining precision targeting and ad creative with contextual messaging that resonates.
The key enabler is keeping all media buying activity plugged into the sporting calendar and every minute of the live game. Genius Sports’ algorithmic pacing curve automatically adjusts your bidding strategy based on when fans are most likely to engage around any sporting event, ensuring we deliver the most efficient results.
In addition, creative can be customised with key scores and game-time events, leading to more real-time engagement from fans. When tied to a sports-based bidding algorithm, these personalised ads can be instantly delivered in the ad format that is most likely to capture fans’ attention at that moment, across programmatic advertising channels like display, video, DOOH and audio.
Alignment between your media buying and creative strategy is vital way to add context to your programmatic sports advertising. Live scores, team and player stats, kick-off countdowns and sports IP like team logos can be integrated into ad design, tailored to specific audience segments and then delivered at relevant times. Read more about dynamic creative for sports audiences here.
To reach sports audiences effectively, marketers need the sports-specific media buying tools and creative assets that let them have the most real-time and relevant conversation with the fan. With the right strategy and tools, brands can create meaningful connections with their audience that last season after season.
