TV Advertising Is Dying. Live Sports on TV, The Only Bright Spot, Is Getting Too Expensive. Isn't There A Better Way? (Hint - Yes)
Hello Live Sports Distributed via Content Creators and Social Media!
A recent WSJ article talked about how Traditional TV advertising is rapidly losing ground to digital and social media platforms. While Live Sports is the only bright spot, it’s also very expensive to buy…. which got us thinking…
So What’s Happening?
Changing Viewership: Gen Z and multicultural audiences are turning away from traditional TV, favoring social platforms.
Brands like Mondelez have slashed TV ad budgets, favoring platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Mondelez’s TV spending dropped from 42% to 15% over three years .
Why? Social media offers two-way communication, fostering interactive, community-driven engagement
Hence Taco Bell’s shift to TikTok. Taco Bell’s Chief Marketing Officer highlighted the importance of generating two-way dialogues through social media .
Live sports remain a stronghold forcing companies to allocate more of their reduced TV budgets to Sport. But TV’s fragmented audience and high costs make it less attractive.
Molson Coors spent 40% of its U.S. ad budget on traditional TV in 2023, compared with 50% five years ago and about 85% in 2013. At the same time, while it spent half of its TV advertising money on sports programming five years ago to roughly 80% this year, even if these ads are more expensive.
But even Molson Coors shifted a larger portion of that money to digital channels such as Instagram and Snap
DISRUPTIVE PLAY - All of this begs the question - if Live Sports are what Advertisers are after because it aggregates the largest audiences, isn’t there a better and more efficient way to buy it ?
The short answer is Yes.
In the last few weeks, from LiveMode to King League to Creator Sports Network we’ve seen a number of companies closing funding rounds to deliver live sports in different way, for today’s generation on social media platforms leveraging owned and creator channels.
Answer me this: If you look at the pictures below, on the top you have some of the biggest influencers driving massive concurrent viewership via social media platforms and on the bottom you have traditional ESPN broadcast with a linear feed delivering strong concurrent viewership.
One gives you a highly desirable, elusive, gen-zennial audience and the other gives you broad mass market.
Which one should be more valuable? Which one is today?
Look, while TV advertising has its merits in terms of credibility, mass reach, and high-quality production, social first distribution offers significant advantages in targeted reach, cost efficiency, real-time engagement, and the ability to interact dynamically with audiences.
It’s not a matter of if, but when Brands and other partners realize where the premium audience lives.
