NEW YORK (Aug. 22, 2008)—The 2008 Beijing Olympics have had millions of Americans glued to the screen, whether on TV or online, with record viewership and Web site traffic. However, the great popularity of the games did not quite translate to huge amounts of video advertising. Based on video stream figures released by NBC, eMarketer estimates video ad spending on the NBCOlympics.com site will reach $5.75 million. That sum is surely a passable performance for a bit more than two weeks, but it represents only 1.1% of this year’s online video ad spending projection of $505 million in the US.

Even with the Olympics’ popularity, much of the record traffic on NBCOlympics.com was not video viewers. One reason for that discrepancy? NBCOlympics.com users were forced to download Microsoft Silverlight, the company’s competitor to Adobe Flash, and being asked to download something to access content tends to eliminate part of the audience.

Still, the 2008 Olympics are a high-profile example of how sports will be a major contributor to video advertising. Several attributes make sports on the Internet an ideal platform to support ad growth as it is nearly always professionally produced, trusted content to attract brand marketers.

“One might just award NBC’s online presentation of the summer Olympics a bronze medal then,” says David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst. “As a signifier for future online events, the games set a high bar for the competition—establishing that major sports events, tournaments and professional leagues ought to offer an abundance of video content online, not just snippets.”

To speak to David Hallerman about the online video market, reach out to the eMarketer media contacts listed below.

About eMarketer
eMarketer is "The First Place to Look" for research and analysis on digital marketing and media. eMarketer aggregates and analyzes research from over 3,000 sources, and brings it together in analyst reports, daily articles and the most comprehensive database of online marketing statistics in the world.

Media Contacts:
Kris Oser
Director of strategic communications, eMarketer
Tel. 212-763-6033
OR
Samson Adepoju
Communications coordinator, eMarketer
Tel. 212-763-6044  

Get more articles like this one delivered every day. Click here for the eMarketer Daily newsletter.