Live sports advertising looks different today. Here’s the new playbook for brands to connect with fans

Sports fans are more engaged than ever, but they're watching differently—choosing when, where, and how they consume content across streaming services. For advertisers, this shift represents a fundamental opportunity: the chance to connect with highly engaged audiences through more relevant, personalized experiences that benefit both brands and the fans they're trying to reach.

As audiences increasingly choose streaming over traditional television, brands have unprecedented opportunities to deliver messaging that feels helpful rather than intrusive—transforming advertising from interruption into discovery.

“2026 is the year of sports, and we want to be part of the conversation with the fans,” said Martin Blich, Executive Director and Head of US Sports and Investment and Partnership at WPP Media, during the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES in January. “Our goal is to engage with the fans. We don't want to disrupt what they're doing.”

The convergence of expanded live sports on streaming, advanced ad technology, and sophisticated measurement capabilities is opening new pathways for brands to reach scaled, engaged live audiences at every stage of their journey while creating better experiences for fans.

More streaming sports, more opportunities, more audiences to reach

Video streaming services have dramatically expanded their sports inventory. What once offered limited sports content now provides comprehensive portfolios spanning multiple leagues and properties—from football and basketball to racing, women's sports, and golf.

The live sports portfolio on Prime Video has grown tremendously in the last few years. After launching Thursday Night Football in 2022, the viewership has continued to rise, having just completed its third straight year of double-digit growth. Prime Video has also expanded to include NBA, NASCAR, WNBA, NWSL, and The Masters.

“We’re really excited by how much we’ve grown and how much sports on streaming is accelerating,” said Danielle Carney, Director of US Video and Live Sports at Amazon Ads, during the CES panel. “And we’ve earned a lot of trust both from fans and the leagues. We’re really excited about being a leader in how sports show up on streaming.”

This expansion creates strategic opportunities for brands to consolidate their live sports investments. Rather than managing relationships with multiple providers, advertisers can work with Amazon Ads to consolidate both owned properties and third-party content. When brands can measure campaigns holistically across multiple sports properties, they gain insights into what's actually driving results—enabling smarter optimization and more effective budget allocation through tools like Amazon DSP or Amazon Marketing Cloud.

The audiences you've been trying to reach are already here

Video streaming services are consistently attracting audiences who are younger, more incremental, and significantly more engaged compared to traditional linear television. Compared to linear NFL broadcasters, Thursday Night Football audiences in 2025 skewed seven years younger, with nearly 20% incremental reach and nearly 50% higher engagement rates.¹

The women's sports story is particularly compelling. The WNBA and NWSL on Prime Video both achieved record viewership in 2025, with WNBA up 81% and NWSL surging 219% compared to the prior year. And a majority of these fans reached by Prime Video did not watch on traditional linear television.²

The shift in how audiences engage with sports reflects broader changes in fan behavior. On stage at CES, Blich emphasized the potential opportunities in fragmentation, noting that it attracts new consumers and creates fresh avenues for engagement, particularly across streaming platforms.

This development also extends to how fans connect with the game. Younger audiences increasingly follow individual athletes alongside specific teams, and as such, Blich encouraged organizations to rethink their engagement strategies and start the planning process earlier. This evolution in fandom means brands need to think beyond traditional team-based sponsorships and consider how to connect with audiences through the athletes and personalities they follow.

For advertisers, this demographic profile represents exactly the audiences they're working to reach. These viewers are cord-cutters and cord-nevers who've made deliberate choices about how they consume content. They're engaged, they're valuable, and they're increasingly concentrated in streaming sports environments. Reaching them with relevant messaging during premium live sports moments creates opportunities for meaningful brand connections that feel natural rather than forced.

The technology to put your audiences in the game—and measure it

The technology powering live sports advertising has evolved far beyond traditional 30-second spots. Audience-based creative allows brands to deliver different messages to different viewer segments within the same broadcast moment, ensuring audiences see advertising that's actually relevant to their interests and needs. Interactive video ads enable audiences to add products directly to their cart with a remote click during live broadcasts, creating seamless pathways from discovery to purchase.

“When we launched, we had those traditional sports advertisers come to us and say, ‘I just want that mass reach.’ That’s why sports has always been so amazing,” Carney said. “But because we’re a streaming service and because we have digital capabilities, we have the ability to go beyond that mass reach of a traditional TV placement. At Amazon we always say to take advantage of everything we’re offering, whether it’s remarketing or our interactivity that’s driving deeper engagement.”

From an agency perspective, the strategic imperative is clear.

"How brands interact in the sports landscape is much different than even two years ago,” said Blich. There's so much in 2026 to look forward to. That opportunity really starts with strategy and then bringing that strategy to activation and then to measurement."

This strategic framework—moving from planning through execution to measurement—is exactly what the new technology capabilities enable at scale.

This level of personalization transforms advertising from interruption into relevant discovery. When sports enthusiasts see gear tailored to their favorite activities, the advertising experience becomes helpful rather than intrusive—benefiting both brands seeking engagement and audiences seeking relevant products.

Perhaps most significantly, measurement innovation is bringing in-program sponsorships to parity with traditional media for the first time on Amazon. New Amazon Ads tools provide conversion rate analyses, reach impact, and delivery performance metrics for placements like billboards and branded segments—capabilities that were previously unavailable. The breakthrough lies in closed-loop attribution, connecting in-game exposure to downstream actions so brands can finally understand their sponsorship's true impact and optimize accordingly.

What this means for your strategy

The brands that will thrive in this new landscape are those that view live sports not as isolated media buys but as integrated components of full-funnel strategies—leveraging premium moments to drive awareness while connecting those exposures to measurable business outcomes through sophisticated targeting, creative, and measurement capabilities.

The opportunity is clear. The playbook is being rewritten. The question is whether your brand is ready to play.

Sources

^1-2 Amazon internal data, 2025.