Dive Brief:

• Dentsu has partnered with Sports Innovation Lab, granting the agency network’s data-driven solution, Merkury, deeper insights into sports audiences, per a press release. 
• Sports Innovation Lab brings audience segments from all teams across the major leagues, including the NFL, NBA and MLB, into Merkury, a platform that reaches 268 million U.S. adults. The audiences are addressable, built on deterministic, transaction-based data. 
• Dentsu is the first large ad-holding group to partner with Sports Innovation Lab, potentially giving the network a leg up as sports marketing interest continues to soar. Spending on sports media rights is forecast to top $60 billion this year.

Dive Insight:

Sports marketing remains a hot commodity, with investments in categories like women’s sports and U.S. soccer rising quickly. Meanwhile, established heavyweights like the NFL and NBA are driving whopper media rights deals and stand as the crown jewels of live programming for brands. 

Dentsu’s tie-up with Sports Innovation Lab aims to improve the agency’s sophistication in devising strategies to reach what are often passionate fanbases. The deal also recognizes that sports consumption is increasingly digital, with more leagues making the jump to streaming and fans relying on social media to keep tabs on games and players.

Sports Innovation Lab, which bills itself as a “fan intelligence” firm building a data cloud for the industry, is tapped into audience segments drawn from across the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, WNBA, MLS and NSWL, along with entertainment venues and sports-betting platforms. The company, which was co-founded by Olympic ice hockey player Angela Ruggiero, is a premiere Snowflake partner, with data accessible via the Snowflake Marketplace. 

In a statement, Jennifer Pelino, chief commercial officer and president of data cloud at Sports Innovation Lab, explained that sports audience data traditionally has been limited, kept behind the confines of specific publisher promotions and sponsorship deals. That is changing, giving the data greater utility for specific occasions, such as developing holiday marketing campaigns or efforts timed to the NFL season.

“This is an amazing opportunity for dentsu clients to gain direct access to purchase-based sports data that can be leveraged for planning, insights, and activation,” said Pelino.

The agreement weds the power of Merkury, which tracks 10,000 consumer data attributes, with Sports Innovation Lab’s “data-driven fan intelligence.” Dentsu emphasized that the integration is privacy first, relying on a cohort-based scoring method and ID-based connections provided by Merkury. 

“Through the partnership, our clients can confidently develop custom audiences, enabling personalized, real-time experiences for sports enthusiasts across channels, while adhering to the highest standards of consumer data protection,” said Gerry Bavaro, chief strategy officer for Merkury at Dentsu, in a press statement.

A boost to sports marketing capabilities could help Dentsu as it pushes for a return to growth. The network saw organic revenue decline 3.7% year over year to $183.8 billion in Q1, including a 6.6% dip in the Americas.