• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, April 18, 2024

Although live sports continue to see more exposure on streaming networks, linear TV still dominates among brands when it comes to sports programming, securing 90% of all advertising placements, according to SponsorUnited.

Of that 10% share of those placements that streaming do have, there are some key categories that are finding more access for their brands. For example, 16% of streaming ad airings are from transportation categories (airlines), while 13% are for consumer electronics and 13% for telecommunications.

The biggest individual streaming services for sports-minded brands are Peacock, with over 250 brands; Paramount+, with 225; and Amazon Prime Video, with 175 (largely coming from “Thursday Night Football”).

The 24/7 sports network ESPN was tracked with a total of over 900 different brand advertisers.

Looking at individual legacy TV series, ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” had 365 brands, while NBC's “Sunday Night Football” had 220.

Although automotive TV advertising has seen some slippage in recent years, these brands still dominated sports TV programming with over 1,735 ad spots over a 12-month period. Around two-thirds of those airings were with  car manufacturers including Toyota, Chevrolet, and Lexus. 

Automotive remains the leading category on ABC, CBS, NBC Fox, and ESPN. In second place is the financial services category with 1,159 spots, followed by Quick Serve Restaurants (QSRs) with 1,082 spots. Entertainment marketers and consumer package goods (CPG) each had around  860-890 airings.

SponsorUnited's Marketing Research and Marketing Departments uses data from March 13, 2023, through March 13, 2024 through its own proprietary platform -- surveying 2,000 brands, 26 networks and streaming services, and nearly 15,000 ad placements.

Linear TV commercial inventory includes pre-game, in-game, and postgame event time slots.

Streaming commercial inventory includes pregame, in-game, and post-game event time slots social-media assets posted from network program accounts, such as NFL on Fox's Instagram page.