Page 32 - AdNews Magazine Jul-Aug 2020
P. 32

 Investigation
“In the absences of this for par- ticular brands, sport/team associ- ation is a great way to unlock the passion, provided the association is authentic, both the brand and sport code share similar values and the alignment is a good fit. The catch here is you need to be pre- pared to ride the wave of both pos- itive and negative press around the code, specific teams or athletes.”
Why are sports rights so attrac- tive to broadcasters? Echo says live appointment viewing for free-to- air networks is centered around sport, news and current affairs.
“These properties earn the attention of TV audiences and still dominate the ‘appointment view- ing’ behaviour as it drives conver- sation,” he says.
“I think this space will get more interesting as VR technol- ogy advances and people can start attending their favourite teams matches virtually and sit on the sideline with the coach — all from the comfort of their living room.”
Ben Willee, general manager and media director at Spinach, says it’s no surprise that battles for sports rights are fierce. Australia is a nation of sports fans.
“The relationship between rights owners and broadcasters is very simple and at the same time very complicated,” he says.
“It’s simple because the rights holders need as many frenzied bidders as possible. The more bid- ders the more you create a sense of competition and the value goes up. Hence some of the eye-wa- tering numbers we have seen in recent years.
“It’s complicated because once the deals are done, the contracts are loaded with clauses to ensure the broadcaster can extract max- imum value out of the deal. The irony is that broadcasters don’t get anywhere near the advertising rev- enue to cover the cost of sports.”
So why bother spending a pile of money that you don’t get back in advertising revenue?
“TV stations are their own big- gest clients and they need high rating, high engagement pro- grams to promote their other shows,” says Willee. “If you look at the top programs list, it’s lit- tered with sports programming.”
 























































































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