SANTA BARBARA — If sports TV channels ever find themselves priced-out of the fast-changing live TV rights, well, Turner Sports may be well placed to reach the right fans, regardless.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Laurie Shackell, VP of advanced media at Turner Sports, says her company is aiming to offer advertisers exposure to fans – not just during games, but after the final whistle and beyond.
“We’re trying to take that live window and expand it,” Shackell says. “Using Xandr and the new data capabilities and addressability, we can follow those fans outside of the live event window.”
She is referring to Xandr, the digital ad unit of AT&T, which now owns WarnerMedia as well as Turner.
Turner’s use of Xandr capabilities is just the latest example of how the earlier big telco/media merger is playing out across the AT&T properties.
“Take the opening week of the NBA,” Shackell continues. “We can target fans of those teams in that area, even when the game ends. The moment was born on TV, but the actual life of the story lives on beyond that game. Now we can take advantage of that through capitalising on fandom.”
Shackell notes that the sports landscape is continuing to change, with more candidates stepping up to buy sports rights.
She is hoping WarnerMedia and Xandr will be seen as assets in future rights conversations.
For now, Shackell is happy just finding the right fan at the right time.
“If I am creating messaging in the NCAA tournament for Duke fans and Duke makes it to the final four, we have the ability to change that message, target those fans,” she says. “Whether they’re watching the tournament or not, we have the ability to target across all of the DirecTV footprint – we’ve never had that option before.”
This video is from a series leading up to, and covering, the Xandr Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara. This Beet.TV series is sponsored by Xandr. Please visit this page to find more videos from the series.
