As the NBA Finals tip off tonight between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs, marketers may be focused on star players, championship storylines and whether New York can finally stop treating basketball titles as a historical reenactment. But new research suggests advertisers should be paying just as much attention to where those games are airing.
According to a new TVB Insights report, sports programming remains one of television's most reliable drivers of consumer action, particularly when it comes to influencing online searches.
The findings arrive as the advertising industry continues its annual ritual of insisting that every new platform, algorithm and AI-powered optimization engine has rewritten the laws of media, only to discover that millions of people still gather to watch live sports.