The bulk of upfront season gets underway in Manhattan on Monday with advertising presentations from NBC, Fox and Amazon. The presentations, which will run through Wednesday, will once again show how upfronts week has morphed significantly over the last five years. The week used to be focused mostly on entertainment programming, with only a side of sports. But that’s now flipped, with sports taking the lead, with traditional entertainment TV seeing a decline in ad dollars allocated there for the past three upfronts. Given this growth of sports vs. traditional entertainment shows at upfront presentations, that’s also meant an increase in the scatter market as some brands wait to see how certain sports programming shakes out.
A growing segment that’s catching advertisers and media buyers’ eyes is the culture around sports, including products like biopics, docuseries and more. The “athlete creator” also is a segment to watch, as some players’ brands have grown larger than the teams they play on. And, of course, AI and tech, which continue improving telecasts and providing viewers ways to engage like never before.
NBC gets things going Monday morning at Radio City Music Hall. The company doesn’t have its “Legendary February” to pitch to brands this year, but still has a healthy slate of sports programming to present, including “Sunday Night Football,” MLB, the NBA, Notre Dame football, Big Ten football (although it will be selling the Big Ten Championship to Fox), the PGA Tour, Premier League, two-thirds of the Triple Crown, NASCAR, the WNBA and smaller properties.
Later on Monday, Fox will have its upfront at New York City Center, where there is sure to be a late push for next month’s FIFA World Cup. The company has not publicly said how ad sales are doing for the event, which has expanded to 48 teams playing over 39 days for the first time. Other sports likely to be highlighted by Fox are the NFL, college football and basketball, MLB, NASCAR and IndyCar.
Amazon Prime Video will close things out on Monday night at the Beacon Theatre. The company is headed into its fifth season as the exclusive home to “Thursday Night Football” and has a new deal for three Duke men’s basketball games. Prime Video also has the NBA, WNBA, NASCAR and the NWSL.
Check out Monday night’s SBJ Media newsletter for a recap of Monday’s news, as well as a preview for Disney/ESPN on Tuesday.