The E.W. Scripps Company is partnering with FreeWheel, Comcast’s global technology platform for television advertising, to increase advertising opportunities across women’s live sports content on ION, Scripps’ national sports and entertainment network.
Through this partnership, Scripps and Freewheel aim to not only increase investment in women’s sports but also bring new advertisers to the arena.
“In addition to surges in viewership across our tentpole women’s sports content on ION last year, we saw more than two dozen new brands advertising with Scripps,” Seth Walters, head of CTV sales at Scripps, commented. “As the demand for women’s sports content accelerates and viewers increasingly seek it on streaming and connected TV platforms, we want to continue to bring more brands into the fold through our expanding roster of live women’s sports and our always-on distribution.”
FreeWheel’s focus on the growth of programmatic advertising across sports and live events in streaming is reflected in an enhanced product suite built to handle the unique challenges of live TV. “With expedited programmatic activation via creative pre-approvals, tools to anticipate real time viewership that ensure proper pacing and ad-serving at scale, FreeWheel is ensuring that programmatic advertising can support the continued growth of live sports across streaming, the Comcast unit said.
“CTV monetization through the first eight weeks of this NWSL on ION season has seen a major uptick vs. last season, increasing over 200%,” says Walters. “We are looking forward to working with FreeWheel to power this explosive streaming growth and unlock new monetization opportunities for the forthcoming season of the WNBA.”
For Greg Bel, Vice President and Head of Supply at FreeWheel, “Coordination between publishers, advertisers, and tech partners is critical to ensure the success of these live events. Scripps and ION are meaningful players in the connected TV space, and, through our partnership, we are ensuring that advertisers who rely on programmatic as their primary buying strategy can take advantage of the growing momentum of women’s sports to put their brands in front of highly engaged audiences.”
