NBCU Consolidates 2028 Olympics Sales Channel; Ad Tech Market Stability In Question

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Let The Games Begin?

There are only nine years until the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Better start planning. NBCUniversal is, at least. NBCU, which has been producing Olympics broadcasts for 30 years, has a unique marketing twist in 2028. The International Olympic Committee will be giving NBCU unprecedented control of media and sponsorship opportunities, The New York Times reports. With the support of the city organizing committee, LA 2028, and the US Olympic Committee, NBCU will consolidate all working and non-working marketing opportunities into one sales channel. Traditionally, a brand would go to the US Committee to sponsor Team USA, the local committee for opportunities at the games and the broadcaster separately for TV spots. “What we are responding to here is not what the marketplace needs, but is demanding,” says Casey Wasserman, chairman of LA 2028 and CEO of Wasserman, a sports marketing and talent agency. More.

Credit Where Due

Investors and publishers are anxious about ad tech stability. Growth rates have trailed off as the programmatic market matures – which means it has consolidated into large media and tech platforms. And there are large credit liabilities in the online advertising supply chain. “The recent collapse of Sizmek, one of the biggest demand-side ad platforms, suggests that the positive momentum behind these companies could be inflated, and that the big money bubble that’s floated dozens of hot ad tech companies over the past few years is about to burst,” Axios reports. Over the past year, Sizmek and Rocket Fuel, Videology, Yieldbot and Defy Media have been the canaries in the coal mine. But public ad tech and data companies are on a strong run recently. The problem is transparency among the private vendors. Ad tech companies that are profitable and maintain profitability may do very well as the market thins. Those that fold will do so overnight, and the industry will pay. More.

Pivot To Paid Pods

Today, most podcast content is free, ad supported and available everywhere. But with the launch of subscription apps like Luminary and Stitcher Premium, and Spotify’s acquisition of Gimlet and Anchor in February, podcast content is slowly moving behind paywalls. That shift is good for consumers, in that it makes it easy to access high quality content bundles in a central place, said Hernan Lopez, CEO of podcast network Wondery, which is launching two exclusive shows on Luminary this spring. But for independent podcast creators making a living off of ad revenue, paywalls could divert their earnings into the pockets of big platforms. “The positive is, as someone who can produce podcasts well, there are a lot of people who can pay and pay well,” a source told Digiday. “The danger is that this is going to force independent voices out of the space.” More.

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