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March 29, 2024

Ads and ESPN Streaming: How Early It Still Is

We love our broadband, and  few things are better than watching your favorite baseball team streamed live on the web. Sunday night, ESPN streamed the Twins/Rangers game, and I was delighted to be able to hear Jon Miller‘s take on the new Target Field, after having spent many a day at the Metrodome.

And it was good ESPN streamed it. It was supposed to on ESPN2 on cable, but, at least in the South Bay, we got a regional college softball tourney.

The streamed video was fairly seamless, cutting out every few innings, but otherwise a good experience. It was the ads that surprised me. For the streamed product, ESPN could apparently find two major advertisers: Samsung and the U.S. Army, with a few ads here and there for others. Worse, the same ads (actually slight variations of two) ran over and over and over, often back to back. Incredibly, they were more repetitive than Joe Morgan, the long-maligned partner of Miller’s.

This is what I learned: “As a soldier in the U.S. Army, you can have it all” and “Ever wonder how amazing it would be to experience life in another dimension? (Hint Samsung’s new 3D TV).”

The other learning: It’s hard for ad sales to keep up with the pace of technology — and customer usage of it.

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