• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 3, 2005

ESPN and ABC will now force TV viewers to buy really big TV sets to accommodate the split screen advertising of its Indy Car races.

A new advertising scheme by ESPN, called Side-by-Side, means advertising will run in a split screen with the racing action - all to make sure viewers miss not one passing car or pit spot. ESPN will begin this with Sunday's Toyota Indy 300.

According to The Wall Street Journalthis morning, a total of 20 minutes of ads will run during a 2.5-hour race. That's good news for viewers. Race action will continue silently on the left of the screen, while the commercial will run with full sound and video on the right.

But here's a potential problem: Don't people read left to right? Won't left-leaning viewers turn a blind eye -- or partial blind eye - to the right side?

Marketers need to ask themselves a continuing sports marketing question: How effective are silent commercials in sports programming? Obviously, Toyota, with a title sponsorship gets more bang for its buck, but what about other ESPN advertisers?

Sports programmers have run into these problems in the past. For instance, when airing soccer matches and other sports where there are no natural breaks in the action for TV commercials. In these events, networks have sold on-air 'bugs' - logos at the bottom of the screen that can be next to the official game clock of the event or other game data.

Virtual signage has been part of sports TV marketing efforts for some time with company logos - either behind the batter's box for baseball games or superimposed on a football field.

Side-by-side advertising seems a return to traditional old-school advertising - plain old TV commercials -- where marketers sense a need to offer up proven messages.

One snag could be that it might appeal to only a specific audience, say Hebrew-reading motor sports fans - who read right to left.