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<\/a><\/p>\nKylie Watson-Wheeler at the ESPN upfront on Wednesday<\/p>\n
ESPN and ESPN2 are available through Disney+, Foxtel, Kayo Sports, Fetch TV and Sky NZ, meaning that an advertisement on ESPN reaches audiences on all those platforms. In-game integration into US sports such as the NBA, NFL, and UFC, means that Aussie sports fans could experience the jarring disconnect of seeing an AAMI logo (for example) splashed up during an NFL touchdown celebration \u2014 but it\u2019s good news for advertisers.<\/p>\n
As Elliot Morton from Disney\u2019s advertising team explained: \u201cPlacing your brand in Super Bowl halftime, which is arguably the most iconic pop culture moment of sport \u2014 you\u2019re not just reaching sports fans, but you\u2019re reaching anyone within reach of screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
ESPN airs 14,000 live events a year, with a library of more than 10,000 hours of on-demand sports programming.<\/p>\n
Sports Center regular Skubie Mageza and Geelong-born ESPN courtside commentator Kane Pitman jetted in from ESPN\u2019s headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, in order to sell the ESPN dream. The pair each charted their journeys from sports-mad kids born outside of the US, to ESPN commentators. (Fun fact: a few years ago, Pitman was working the graveyard shift at an oil refinery in Geelong.)<\/p>\n
Skubie Mageza and Kane Pitman added flair<\/p>\n Everything the pair said was an aside to the main event \u2014 albeit very amusing, and with the easy chemistry you\u2019d expect from professional broadcasters \u2014 but it did helped paint the brand as an aspirational icon, on par with its parent company. As Mageza said, when they arrive as a sporting event with the ESPN-red microphones, people in the stadium react: the very presence of ESPN makes it a major sporting event.<\/p>\n Sally O\u2019Donoghue, Australian general manager of Disney+, hopped on stage to claim that \u201cDisney+ is delivering a new and incremental audience for live sport. This is not the same audience that are engaging with ESPN on other platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n ESPN\u2019s recent NBA Finals coverage was up 30% on last year, thanks largely to the expanded access.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are unlocking new fans and they are deeply engaged, watching multiple leagues, and bridging the seasons. A high volume of sport every single day means our audiences remain consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Donoghue explained how its sporting content and the rest of the Disney catalogue isn\u2019t as siloed as one might think. Disney\u2019s internal data shows a quarter of Australians who watched the recent NBA Finals series through ESPN on Disney+, also streamed The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. One sports fan has also streamed the entire 36 season of The Simpsons six times, and is currently in the midst of a seventh run through.<\/p>\n Sally O\u2019Donoghue<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s around two and a half months of straight back to back viewing, 24 hours a day,\u201d O\u2019Donoghue noted, before speculating the person might be present at the upfront. \u201cWe love those kinds of subscribers.\u201d<\/p>\n George Henshaw from Disney\u2019s advertising team explained that the addition of ESPN \u201cmeans for the first time in Australia, advertisers will be able to reach a new, incremental audience on Disney+, with scale, high engagement, and with precise targeting.\u201d<\/p>\n Every ad break will be delivered digitally, through Disney Ad Service, a proprietary advertising technology that has been built and used in the US for years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Disney Ad Service has been built for streaming live sport, but most importantly, it\u2019s been built for advertisers.\u201d<\/p>\n Magnite is the programmatic partner on Disney+, in Australia and in New Zealand, and allows for dynamic ad buying.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Magnite, we\u2019ve built a custom integration into the Disney Ad Server, an integration built to optimise the surge in bid requests we see in live sport, to ensure programmatic buyers never miss out on a key sporting moment,\u201d Henshaw said.<\/p>\n \u201cTo support this, we\u2019re running guaranteed and biddable deal types. And with biddable, the programmatic buyers will be able to run a unified deal across ESPN on Kayo and on Disney+, to maximise reach and scale, whilst maintaining full control over a universal 3D display frequency cap.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n