Pacers Sports & Entertainment launches retail media network

Pacers Sports & Entertainment has unveiled a novel retail media network — the kind normally reserved for an Amazon, Costco or PetSmart — that widens its marketing footprint acrossthe globe’s top 500 digital publishers through the data spine of Deloitte and the AI ad tech of Yieldmo.

The result of the three-way collaboration is the Fieldhouse Media Network, which will systematically attach customized advertising from PS&E sponsors onto web-based articles or connected TVs based on keywords such as “free agency,” “Aliyah Boston,” “Caitlin Clark,” “logo threes,” “triple-doubles,” “game-winners,” “trade deadline,” “draft lottery,” “Tyrese Haliburton-comeback” and myriad others that can be sports or non-sports related. PS&E sponsors — such as Gainbridge, Lexus, Eli Lilly and Salesforce, etc. — then end up with national and international audiences they did not initially target, broadening their business.

“It starts for us with the thought that in an era of data and digital, there are no small or big markets,” said PS&E Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Joey Graziano, who led the in-house deal. “Wenow have a platform allowing us to have the advertising inventory that goes alongside the articles written about those key moments, regardless of the publisher.”

A year-plus in the making, the platform combines PS&E’s own first-party database from 50 states and 57 countries with Converge by Deloitte for Sports’ database that identifies the behaviors and preferences of 250 million sports and entertainment fans.

“We move past the demographics of just your name, your zip code, your phone number,” said Li-Shen Lee, principal and general manager of Converge by Deloitte for Sports. “And we really bring in this rich proprietary data fabric, which … allows us to understand way beyond their fandom for the team. What they’re buying? What brands they like? What life stage are you in? Are you about to buy a house? Things … that really allows us to understand your behavior and who you are as a person in totality. And triangulating that they like, take a Caitlin Clark or Tyrese Haliburton.”

In other words, Converge by Deloitte for Sports can theoretically pinpoint Clark or Haliburton fans who have shown an affinity for automobiles. Then, when that person clicks on a keyworded digital story about the Fever star, they would promptly see an ad for PS&E sponsor Lexus — through the technology of Yieldmo Sports, which reads the open web in real time and then bids for, negotiates and acquires the ad space from the publisher

Through it all, the costs are baked into the packages that PS&E sponsors buy, and PS&E also then contractually owns its partners’ viewership metrics and direct marketing audiences.

“To date, what [PS&E] have not been able to do is reach fans who are consuming Caitlin Clark content off channel,” said Eric Herd, Global Head of Sports & Emerging Products at Yieldmo. “Off channel is defined by: the Pacers and Fever don’t own that asset. It’s not their site, it’s not their app, it’s not something within PS&E. It’s ESPN, it’s SI, it’s wherever.

“But now Joey’s team, in addition to all the other assets they’re selling against, can [tell a sponsor], ‘You’re also going to own or be around [Clark or Haliburton or any game-winning shot] content all over the Web.”

In addition to digital ads, PS&E and Fieldhouse Media Network will launch direct marketing campaigns through email, texts and their owned and operated channels — based again on Deloitte analytics and their own data collected from hosting 200-plus events at Gainbridge Fieldhouse such as the NBA and WNBA all-star games, NBA Finals, WNBA semifinals and other live events.

“This is a platform that’s been proven by the largest Fortune 100 companies in the world,” Graziano said. “Retail media networks exist for Amazon, Costco, PetSmart. But this is the first time someone’s brought that to sports. … And the secret sauce is in the combination of the three of us.”