Additionally, canceled live events like sports helped advertisers reach specific audiences such as young men who don't otherwise watch much live TV. Given that the NBA viewers tend to be younger than cable TV viewers, increased viewing time in an area like news won't fully negate the losses in sports watching.

“Some leagues, especially F1 and Nascar, have seen a lot of great success as their sports have transitioned from traditional sports to esports viewing,” said Dan Conti, director of sports and live offerings at ad agency Wavemaker.

How to fill the void of live sports and events now that they’re on hold. PRESENTERS. Max Knight is vice president of analytics services at Amobee. Max built and leads the analytics team. He’s devoted to helping brands and agencies to both discover and use deep insights to answer questions about their advertising, audiences and messaging.

Additionally, we recently did advertising with [in-game advertising platform] Bidstack on Barstool Sports, and it had 300,000 views for a horse racing toy that people gambled on. It was pretty wild because there are no live sports. We're just finding creative ways to advertise. Are any other channels working well for you right now? Our email open rates have gone up with more people at home.

This pattern mirrors other markets globally; during mass quarantines and periods of limited movement, there is very little demand for outdoor advertising like billboards, and zero demand for cinema advertising or live sports arena displays. Even now, as the population in China has emerged and gone back to work, cinemas and sports leagues are not yet back up and running at pre-pandemic levels.

There’s no question the 2020/2021 upfronts season experienced a significant dip due to the pandemic’s impact on production and live sports, not to mention the uncertainty advertisers were facing. But to say that the upfronts are going away entirely would ignore the value they’ve long provided for both networks and advertisers, which are after all, essentially futures markets.

Gatherings for cultural pursuits will be even more impacted, with just 36% of respondents indicating that they would go to a movie theater and 22% saying they would attend a live concert, festival or play. Going to live sports events appears to be the most anxiety-inducing activity, with just 18% of respondents planning to do so. Not sure if your company subscribes? Find out here.

The cancellation of live sports, along with the Upfronts getting upended, will only put more pressure on TV ad sellers this season. Prior to the pandemic, we expected US TV ad spending to increase 2.0% to $72.00 billion in 2020. And we expected US connected TV ad spending to grow 34.8% to $8.83 billion this year.

For example, travel, and particularly travel search, skew toward desktop, and live sports still generate the bulk of their ad revenues on TV and CTV. Mobile’s position in the attention stack was most pronounced in four areas: social media, gaming, messaging and video.

The cancellation of live events—including concerts, theater shows, and sports—has caused entertainment advertisers to pull back their ad spending significantly. This year, digital ad spend in the US entertainment industry will drop by 6.9% to $7.03 billion. Spending should recover in 2021 as live entertainment returns. 

The impact of canceled sports events goes beyond the Olympics and Euro 2020. The English Premier League soccer season is currently on pause, with the cricket season also delayed. If top-flight sports remain on hold until August, it could cost Sky and BT Sport (the two main broadcasters) up to £1 billion ($1.28 billion), according to Enders Analysis.

On the plus side, though, TV viewing—and ad spending—should rebound to a more normal level in H2 2020, especially if live sporting events return to broadcast schedules, and other planned programming gets back on track. In addition, Germany’s TV broadcasters still have plenty of time to scope and produce content for the crucial end-of-year holiday season.

Gatherings for cultural pursuits will be even more impacted, according to the study, with just 36% indicating that they would go to a movie theatre, and 22% saying they would attend a live concert, festival or play. Going to live sports events appears to be the most anxiety-inducing activity, with just 18% of respondents planning to do so. While Most Sectors Suffer, Some Gain.