Fox Corporation and FreeWheel Announce Expanded Partnership to Introduce Dynamic Ad Insertion for College Football on FOX and Proprietary AdRise Integration
Fox (Nasdaq: FOXA) has expanded its partnership with FreeWheel to enhance its dynamic ad insertion capabilities for College Football broadcasts on FOX. This collaboration will see FreeWheel serve as the primary monetization engine for Tubi and the entire One FOX portfolio, integrating with FOX's AdRise to streamline access to premium video ad inventory. This move aims to offer advertisers more targeted, contextually rich ad opportunities in live sports. FreeWheel's technology, including Beeswax, will create a unified pool of premium video ad inventory, making it more accessible to marketers.
- Expanded dynamic ad insertion capabilities for College Football on FOX.
- FreeWheel serves as the primary monetization engine for Tubi and One FOX.
- Integration of AdRise and FreeWheel enhances access to premium video ad inventory.
- Targeted, contextually-rich ad opportunities for advertisers during live sports.
- Unified pool of premium video ad inventory leveraging FreeWheel's technology.
- Simplified ad inventory packaging for audience-based selling.
- Increased reliance on FreeWheel might pose a risk if the partnership faces issues.
- Potential viewer experience disruption due to dynamic ad insertions.
- The complexity of integrating new technology could lead to execution challenges.
Insights
The expanded partnership between FOX and FreeWheel signifies a strategic enhancement for FOX's ad inventory monetization. By integrating dynamic ad insertion for live sports, particularly College Football, FOX aims to capitalize on highly engaged audiences. Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) allows advertisers to tailor ads in real-time based on the audience's demographics and behavior, enhancing engagement and potentially increasing ad revenue. AdRise integration with FreeWheel's tech stack brings in contextual targeting, which is a game-changer in live sports advertising. This means ads can be inserted based on the game's specific moments, such as a touchdown or critical play, making the ads more relevant and impactful.
For advertisers, this partnership offers an opportunity to tap into a unified pool of premium video ad inventory, simplifying the ad buying process across FOX's extensive portfolio. This move is likely to bring in more ad dollars as advertisers value the precision and scalability offered. From the retail investor's perspective, this partnership could enhance FOX's revenue streams, particularly in the sports segment, which is a significant part of their portfolio. However, the long-term success will depend on the execution of these technologies and the market's acceptance of these advanced ad solutions.
The integration of FreeWheel's technology, including Beeswax, with FOX's AdRise is a significant technological advancement. Beeswax is known for its advanced bidding algorithms and customizable tech stack, which can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of programmatic advertising. This partnership is poised to streamline the ad serving process across FOX's entire portfolio, making it more responsive and data-driven. Such integration can reduce latency and improve ad targeting accuracy, which are critical factors in live sports broadcasting where milliseconds count.
The use of contextual signals in ad serving is particularly innovative. By leveraging data on specific player actions or game events, ads can be made more relevant to the viewer, potentially increasing viewer engagement and brand recall. For investors, this technological leap not only showcases FOX's commitment to innovation but also positions it well in the competitive ad tech market. The key challenge will be in managing the complexities of real-time data processing and ensuring that the viewer experience remains seamless.
FreeWheel will programmatically enable Tubi, and the entire One FOX portfolio, by serving as the company’s primary monetization engine.
This agreement includes a proprietary integration between FOX’s AdRise and FreeWheel to further drive scale, access and a more simplified path to premium video ad inventory.
FreeWheel’s technology will now power FOX’s ability to offer dynamic ad insertion in College Football, allowing advertisers to purchase more premium live sports inventory from FOX while also incorporating a variety of features to provide an optimal viewing experience for audiences.
FOX’s AdRise and FreeWheel have also partnered to build technology that can enrich an ad opportunity with contextual signals ranging from specific player or team information to the type of play or score happening in the live game. This further allows advertisers to purchase One FOX inventory in high attention moments where audiences are paying closer attention to the onscreen action.
The move comes as FOX furthers its shift toward automated forms of ad transactions. FreeWheel will utilize capabilities across its portfolio, including Beeswax, to create a unified pool of premium video ad inventory across the entire One FOX portfolio that can be more directly available to marketers using FreeWheel’s technology.
“The TV ad marketplace is very complex and when we thought about who is doing a great job helping advertisers to cut through that clutter and drive ROI, FreeWheel clearly stood out,” said Darren Sherriff, Senior Vice President, Advertising Technology Solutions, FOX. “We’re thrilled to be able to offer our advertising partners a powerful way to reach engaged audiences across the entire Fox portfolio, including our premium live sports events, while prioritizing and protecting the viewer experience.”
“We are excited and proud to strengthen our relationship with FOX,” said Katy Loria, Chief Revenue Officer, FreeWheel. “Our antidote to today’s complicated ad landscape is to provide technology and solutions to help further accelerate the momentum, growth and innovation behind premium video. As FOX’s primary ad serving partner, we are looking forward to working with them – and advertisers – to drive better business results.”
The collaboration brings synergistic benefits to advertisers working with FOX and FreeWheel. Marketers, specifically, now have the ability to access one, scaled FOX opportunity to drive incremental audience reach. FOX, meanwhile, now has a simplified way to package its ad inventory supply, particularly for audience-based selling.
This long-term deal expands on FreeWheel’s previous relationship with FOX. In November 2022, Fox Corporation announced that it had tapped FreeWheel to power its One FOX video inventory across the company’s leading entertainment, sports, streaming and news portfolio.
About Fox Corporation
Fox Corporation produces and distributes compelling news, sports, and entertainment content through its primary iconic domestic brands, including FOX News Media, FOX Sports, FOX Entertainment, FOX Television Stations and Tubi Media Group. These brands hold cultural significance with consumers and commercial importance for distributors and advertisers. The breadth and depth of our footprint allows us to deliver content that engages and informs audiences, develop deeper consumer relationships, and create more compelling product offerings. FOX maintains an impressive track record of news, sports, and entertainment industry success that shapes our strategy to capitalize on existing strengths and invest in new initiatives. For more information about Fox Corporation, please visit www.FoxCorporation.com.
About FreeWheel
FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240612824351/en/
Media:
Fox Corporation
Kathy Kelly-Brown
Kathy.kelly-brown@fox.com
FreeWheel
Meredith Fitzgerald
215-970-8504
Meredith_Fitzgerald@Comcast.com
Source: FreeWheel
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