Join us Sept. 14-16 in Miami to connect with top publishing leaders On the the last workday before the Super Bowl and with Winter Olympics’ opening ceremonies just hours away, WPP Media has formed a partnership with sports data platform Genius Sports, Digiday has learned. The plan is to integrate Genius Sports’ first-party league, team and transactional data – derived from Genius Sports’ 250-million-consumer FanGraph platform – directly into WPP Media’s own planning and data systems, including Open Intelligence. By pairing Genius Sports’ first-party audience insights with WPP’s own data resources, the partnership is creating an exclusive “Brand Sports Momentum Score” that measures fan acquisition, retention, and spend against brand-specific audiences, which will help WPP Media guide its clients to finding less obvious audiences in sports that might fall outside the major tentpoles — and get closer to delivering on outcomes. “This intelligence is going to be able to deliver different results than what maybe we would have had when we were only utilizing third-party data,” said Marty Blich, executive director, head of U.S. sports investment & partnership at WPP Media. “It’s about getting smarter. It’s about getting more effective. It’s about getting faster and actionable on what we do.” The sports marketplace has been red hot for more than a year, having played a big role in last year’s upfront . While a specific sports ad revenue figure is hard to come by, sports is expected to contribute heavily to the more than $1 trillion in ad spend expected this year. In many ways, that’s thanks to the big tentpoles of sports — the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the World Cup and the major sports leagues. But as Blich pointed out, the scorecard WPP Media is forming via the Genius partnership will help drive clients to perhaps lesser-known sports that may be overdelivering on a particular audience. Hypothetically, if World Cup soccer is too expensive for advertiser X, perhaps the World Cup of cricket, or a rugby league could deliver similar audiences. “This is about actually having a media strategy — utilizing this data and applying it to a media strategy that’s 360 all year round,” he said. “This isn’t just about how do I use this for the World Cup, or the Olympics. It’s really about, how do I take this and create a real, true sports strategy utilizing first party data.” For its part, Genius Sports believes it’s giving WPP Media a head start against its competition — although the major holdcos, including Publicis , have all made investments of late. “Static metrics can’t keep up with how fans behave or how brands need to act,” said Josh Linforth, chief revenue officer, Genius Sports, in a statement. “By powering WPP Media’s proprietary fandom and momentum scores with league, team and transactional data, we are giving brands a real time, outcome focused view of fandom inside their planning workflow.” Blich said WPP Media is talking with clients about what the partnership can deliver now, but acknowledged it won’t likely be applicable to last-minute purchases in the Olympics. Copy link Trending in The Sports Marketing Playbook 01 The Sports Marketing Playbook How Unilever detergent brand Persil measures sports sponsorship impact 02 Member Exclusive Future of Marketing Briefing: Soccer’s World Cup buzz isn’t moving needle on Premier League ad spend Sponsored Sport is marketing’s greatest opportunity — and its greatest activation challenge 03 The Sports Marketing Playbook Nike versus Adidas: Which brand won the World Cup? Most Read 01 Zero-click Future In Graphic Detail: How AI search has impacted the web traffic of over 50 advertisers 02 The Business of AI USA Today Co. is reformatting content to attract more AI licensing deals 03 AI Revenue Generation The IAB is developing a framework to tackle AI advertising measurement 04 Marketing on Platforms OpenAI is sharpening its focus on enterprise advertisers 05 The Creator Economy The winners and losers of YouTube’s view count and monetization overhaul More in Media Buying View More Marketing on Platforms OpenAI’s ChatGPT ads business hits $1 billion run rate as Europe gets self-serve access August 31, 2026 Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit That figure comes from multiplying current monthly ad revenue by 12, so it’s a snapshot of where things stand today rather than money already booked over a full year. The holdco boss has been in place for a busy year, but the agency group has a long way to go if it’s to find a secure business model. The former CMO of GE has seen agencies of all stripes and sizes come and go. If they’re not putting the client first, they’re not doing job one. Get access to tools and analysis to stay ahead of the trends transforming media and marketing Visit your account page to make changes and renew. Get Digiday's top stories every morning in your email inbox. Follow @Digiday for the latest news, insider access to events and more.
Curated by Taleb Kabbara · Source: digiday.com