[Elvis]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/busin ... .html?_r=0

Yahoo Sells Out Ad Space for Live-Stream of N.F.L. Game

By RICHARD SANDOMIROCT. 22, 2015

Yahoo’s global webcast of the Buffalo Bills-Jacksonville Jaguars game Sunday morning from London is the type of event that Jack Hollis, group vice president for marketing at Toyota Motors in the United States, did not want the automaker to miss. He did not care much about audience projections. He just wanted Toyota to be part of it, and agreed to buy commercial time almost as soon as Yahoo announced its deal with the National Football League.

“You don’t get a chance to be part of firsts very often,” Mr. Hollis said. “And, from a Toyota standpoint, I like to be part of historic firsts. And as a process of our partnerships with Yahoo and the N.F.L., it was an easy decision.” Toyota will sponsor the game’s halftime show and Dairy Queen is sponsoring the pregame show.

Yahoo announced on Thursday that more than 30 advertisers would present spots during the game and that the webcast was sold out. It did not reveal the cost of the ads, but Mr. Hollis said it was comparable to the price of commercial time on traditional televised N.F.L. games. It also did not provide any viewership estimates. Mr. Hollis insisted that Yahoo’s global reach was enough to persuade him.

“Yahoo reaches more than one billion users, and I don’t know what percentage is going to watch, but it’s a universe of users that’s so large I’ll get plenty of return,” he said, then added: “Content that has a global reach is one that I’m going to continue to invest in.” (Yahoo says it has over one billion global users a month on desktop and mobile, including Tumblr.)

The other advertisers include Arby’s, the Emirates airline, American Express, Snickers, Subway, T-Mobile, Cadillac, Papa John’s, Kohl’s, Bose and Applebee’s. “The marketers are very excited,” said Lisa Utzschneider, chief revenue officer of Yahoo. She said they would have the option of running their ads globally or only in the United States.

Allison Miazga-Bedrick, the brand director of Snickers, also an N.F.L. sponsor, said that advertising on Yahoo’s game fit its focus on digital marketing.

“It’s a test as we lean in on more social digital areas,” she said. “The more we do in the digital social area, the more it helps our brand. It maintains our relevance where our customers are going.”

She added, “We believe in video neutral and that all screens are the same.”

CompareCards.com, which lets people examine the benefits of credit cards online, is advertising on the pregame show and during the first half. For the company, it is a way to do marketing with video with the aim of improving its direct-response business.

“We’ve found that Yahoo is a good demographic for us, as is the N.F.L,” said Chris Mettler, the president of CompareCards.com. “Yahoo understands our business and they came to us with this opportunity.” Nearly all of the company’s marketing is done digitally.

The streamed game will have one commercial break fewer per quarter, shaving about eight minutes of advertising off the length of a traditional N.F.L. broadcast, said Hans Schroeder, the league’s senior vice president for media strategy and development.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story
Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

“This was done to experiment with faster-paced games,” he said. “We’re focused on overall game length, to see how a slightly reduced ad load allows the game to move quicker.”

The globally streamed game is an experiment by the N.F.L. to gauge the appeal of American football internationally, as well as how popular a game will be when it is distributed almost entirely digitally. It could lead to a more extensive streaming deal in the future with Yahoo or another digital company.

Steve Bornstein, the league’s former executive vice president for media, said, “I take them at their word that this is an experiment. I think they want to find out what the potential is. I’m not sure what they will learn from it but I applaud them for thinking, ‘Let’s try something.’ ”

Yahoo paid around $20 million to carry the game, which starts at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. The game will be produced by CBS and carried on television in the United States only in the Buffalo and Jacksonville markets — which account for 1 percent of the country’s television households.

The N.F.L. is sure to generate competition for any future streaming contract, especially if Google and Facebook, which also sought the rights to Sunday’s game, enter the bidding with Yahoo. But it is unclear whether Yahoo will continue to seek streaming rights. The company has long had a popular sports site and it recently expressed interest in streaming more live sports events. However, on Tuesday, Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, said the company was reviewing its overall strategy, and it took a $42 million charge to write down the value of some video assets, formally acknowledging that it had overpaid for them.

In addition, Kathy Savitt, the Yahoo executive who championed the video streaming projects, left the company last month.

[RedAlice]

Thanks for the update. I forgot this is the game being streamed by Yahoo.

Too bad it's on at 6:30am, but will still check it out.