What to Watch This Summer

I was so distracted from abnormal world events these past few years that it didn’t hit home that the Coyotes were moving away while the rights holder for our beloved MLB franchise was bouncing checks. Meanwhile, like many of you, I disconnected from cable and now rely on various non-linear TV platforms to provide me with video entertainment on the rare occasions that I have time to sit in front of the TV.

In more normal times, my go-to April evening was to come home, put on a Dbacks or a Coyotes game, and go about my business. In my new streaming world, that wasn’t to be.

I knew about Diamondbacks TV when it was first launched, but I just didn’t take action to subscribe. I am a baseball fan, a fan of the team, and a big fan of their front office. I also own a sports marketing firm … watching sports is my job (or so I tell my wife). And yet, I took no action to subscribe. Now I’m missing out on a team that is competing admirably in baseball’s toughest division.

In its current state, I’m assuming the Diamondbacks are selling their inventory similar to how it’s been sold in the past. You’ll see :30 and :15 video ads for clients like throughout a ‘broadcast’ that includes lower thirds, gameflows, and other in-game activations that drive value to the partnership. Other than the platform serving it, it would look somewhat similar to what you would be used to seeing.

There are national MLB sponsors mixed in with local sponsors, while wondering out loud if unsold inventory is sold through some partnership with a streaming aggregator.

Streaming services or connected TVs sell their inventory much differently than linear platforms like cable, satellite, or broadcast. I wrote a blog on a related topic for my other company here if you’ve got time to spare. With connected TV, you can buy traditional demographic audiences by age and gender, but you can also layer in broad consumer behaviors up to a level that doesn’t violate certain privacy protocols. This makes connected TV more advantageous for the advertiser.

Truly, there’s a lot to unpack there, and it’s one of the reasons that someday, when all the BS tech fees and privacy issues are eliminated, connected TV is going to dominate the future video advertising.

The state of the industry is such that even though some aggregators like to boast about the capability of reaching specific audiences with identifiable intent. The truth is that the industry has a ways to go. The good news is that things seem to be progressing quite rapidly in this space.

Major League Baseball is smart to recognize this and is ahead of the game by moving itself to a non-linear platform. Right now, it’s challenging. The space is unsettled, and the market they rely on is still transitioning from the broadcast/cable world to a connected one.

In the future, once privacy issues are resolved and a few technological advancements are in place, I see the Dbacks streaming platform able to deliver the most valuable asset in all of advertising: ad relevance. Simply put, streaming platforms can deliver ads in a manner that broadcast/cable platforms cannot: specific ads served on devices owned by people with defined interests.

Another key selling point and advantage for a streaming service is how it eliminates the guesswork for audience delivery. Connected TV’s need not rely on archaic audience measurement data. Also, there is the ability of connected TV to track actual clicks to a website from their stream.

I’m not going to bore you with an ‘ordering a pizza’ example. That’s already here. I’m talking about dynamic user intent that serves me ads for imitation sandcrab saltwater flies because of my recent internet browsing history and pending trip to Mexico. That, my friends, is the future, and that is why the Diamondbacks streaming product has the potential to be more amazing than it already is.