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YouTube Winning With Sports: Running Up The Score - Don't Skip The Ads

YouTube and YouTube TV seem to have found their footing with sports programming, the dominant major TV-video content that pulls in big advertising dollars.

And now it is stepping on the gas, starting up 30-second non-skippable advertising on YouTube Select -- which is the top 5% of YouTube's most-viewed and most-engaging content on the service. 

The company calls its YouTube Select “a diverse mix of relevant content lineups and programs – each tailored to unique marketing needs. It’s relevancy at scale, which means greater ROI for your business.”

This comes in handy for those pricey sports TV media advertising buys. Like the NFL.

YouTube right now already sells blocks of back-to-back 15-second, non-skippable ads.

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YouTube's companion business -- YouTube TV, the still-growing virtual pay TV provider --  has been plying the sports TV business for some time -- with big marketing campaigns on the NBA, the NHL, ESPN "SportsCenter," the NFL, and other sports, letting consumers and young sports consumers in particular know that they are a place for major TV sports properties.

In keeping with that, it made a major leap over the last several months, grabbing the high-profile and valuable “NFL Sunday Ticket” -- where heavy-duty NFL aficionados can see all out-of-market games on a Sunday -- virtually non-stop professional football all day long.

That's a lot of touchdowns, punts, and yes, advertising.

Best part for YouTube so far with all its sports content -- for advertisers anyway -- is that its TV sports viewers are younger than those on traditional linear TV. 

Even without non-skippable 30-second TV ads to come, YouTube says marketers' return on media investment is rocketing ever higher. For one, Hershey, a big brand on the service -- saw a 65% increase in ROI.

Is this too much leverage that you can't skip any YouTube Select advertising on big viewer producing programming? Well, that is also the case with many ad-supported premium streaming options -- and for decades before time-skipping technology with linear TV.

Still, you might think all this is too much.

No problem. YouTube also takes a hint from other CTV/digital platforms: Offering so-called “pause” ads. Why? Guessing you can only get so much good stuff from other ads that you can't skip during a key competitive football game.

Maybe that isn't a big deal. But on the YouTube, advertising-supported platform, the platform still gives users control to skip ads after at least after five seconds or so. Mostly-skippable.

So, to riff off the NFL metaphor for growing YouTube advertisers, who needs to get down in the trenches, now -- and do some hard-hitting attention-grabbing messages?

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