OMG’s Melinda Clow on how programmatic can turn live sports’ unpredictability into an asset

Until recently, British advertisers couldn’t fully capitalize on one of the biggest draws of live sports - their unpredictability – without large media investments to be across many games or tournaments.

In football this past season, such moments can look like Bournemouth ending Manchester City’s record 32-match unbeaten streak by winning 2-1. In golf, that would be when Rory McIlroy missed his putt on the 18th hole at the Masters to send it to a play-off.

This will now change as Sky Media has enabled programmatic buying across some of its most coveted live sports inventory on Sky Sports, including select Premier League matches.

Last week, Omnicom Media Group announced it will be the first major advertising holding company to activate Sky’s new programmatic buying capabilities through a new private marketplace product called “Sports Surge,” powered by The Trade Desk, across the U.K. and Ireland.

Sports Surge will help capture moments where viewing surges happen and more people tune in to see what’s going on. It is expected to launch by the start of the 2025-26 Premier League season in August. Access will be exclusive to OMG clients until the end of the year.

The Current spoke with Melinda Clow, the managing partner of programmatic activation at OMG, about how programmatic can change the game for ad buying on live sports.

Is now the right time to invest in programmatic buys on live sports?

The majority of ad spend still flows through linear advertising models, but with the rise of streamed viewing alongside more advanced programmatic tools and audience targeting, brands can now capitalize on attention spikes.

Buying live sports inventory programmatically requires the technical capability from the demand platform to understand a sudden influx of inventory, which has to be overridden by a traditional pacing algorithm.

The Trade Desk has built the required pacing features to help advertisers cater for these spikes in inventory availability, which can enable buyers to utilize the available reach during these short periods in events and matches.

U.K. broadcasters are taking significant steps forward in integrating their inventory and offerings programmatically, and this is helping unlock the value of the technology.

What potential impact do you see this capability having on live sports advertising in the U.K.? How could this change the market?

Enabling live sports programmatically can bring advertisers more agility and flexibility to control how they want to prioritize their brand advertising in specific events and matches.

This also can bring an extra level of creativity where brands can deliver more contextual relevancy by decisioning and tailoring creative to different sports categories and moments.

With broadcasters simplifying the buying process and embracing programmatic routes, it can open up live sports to more brands — ones that maybe haven’t been able to access traditional TV routes or brands that want to benefit from unifying their video and AV strategies together as part of multifaceted programmatic campaign architectures.

Can you walk us through an example of what a real-time campaign buy might look like during a high-stakes Premier League match?

With the specific live sports pacing features from The Trade Desk, advertisers with access to the tool can set up specific ad groups by event or sports type and set aside a budget that can be tapped into to help you maximize the potential reach for any of the live sports events.

Omnicom may use real-time game signals and in-match triggers to initiate campaigns during high-attention moments.

Using programmatic technology with The Trade Desk, Omnicom can work towards delivering pre-roll impressions into livestreamed sports content at the exact moment a viewer tunes in.

This can allow brands with access to the functionality to connect with audiences during highly engaging and talked-about moments.

How do you see these investments potentially translating into meaningful outcomes for advertisers?

By leveraging new metadata signals and advanced audience targeting capabilities, buyers with access to this tool can reaching customers during the most impactful points in a broadcast — aiming to maximize effectiveness and relevance.

The opportunity for Sports Surge is to capture more available audiences and a higher brand share of voice than with more fixed media buying.

As scale increases, suitable measurement methodologies will likely be applied to assess the value of live sports — tracking performance through metrics like incrementality, attention and brand recall.

Looking ahead, how do you see this model evolving — could we see similar activations across other types of live content or markets?

We will be looking at ways to evolve this model to other sports content and other live entertainment and viewing opportunities.

Omnicom is already working with major streaming platforms and broadcasters across different markets and recently also announced integrations with The Trade Desk and Disney+.

The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk Inc. This information is provided solely for background and is not a representation or guarantee of any future performance.