• by Laurie Sullivan , Yesterday

IAB Tech Lab has developed a Live Event Ad Playbook with leadership at Amazon, FreeWheel, Index Exchange, and NBCUniversal. The companies formed a working group to create standards and best practices around live streaming services for all companies across the ecosystem.

“Live events — whether sports, news, or cultural moments — are increasingly broadcast via streaming platforms,” stated Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “Delivering a seamless live stream at scale is already a technical challenge.”

IAB Tech Lab, the global digital advertising technical standards body, introduced the playbook with a variety of tools. The toolkit aims to equip advertisers and streaming services with what they need to support live events with reliable and scalable ad delivery.

The Concurrent Streams API specification, for example, will simplify the monetization of live streaming events. It provides real-time insights into how many viewers are watching a live stream.

It allows publishers — either independently or through their SSAI partners — to send live viewership data to ad systems, enabling faster ad decisions while reducing the risk of missed ad breaks.

It will provide data on projected viewership estimates for upcoming events during a rolling two-to-three-week window. The idea is to help publishers prepare for traffic surges and enable advertisers to fine-tune budgets, deals, and delivery strategies.

For advertisers, this means better handling of traffic spikes and the ability to adjust campaigns in real time to capture crucial instances where a customer experiences significant benefit or satisfaction from a product or service.

Streaming services are expected to spend more than $11 billion on sports rights this year. Events like Super Bowl LX and the 2024 Paris Olympic Games have driven mass viewership, demonstrating the power of live sports for advertisers looking to reach audiences at scale, according to IAB Tech Labs. 

Mark McKee, GM at FreeWheel, noted more than a billion impressions during the 2024 NFL Playoff, and a 90% increase in advertiser participation in the 2024 Olympics, there's clear demand for live sports.

Neal Richter, director of Amazon DSP, believes that by “establishing common protocols and APIs, we're collectively moving toward a more reliable set of standards that benefits viewers, content creators, and brands.”

The goal, according to the companies, is for these proposed standards to create a clear framework — a premium and seamless live sports streaming experience for every member in the media supply chain.