The Las Vegas Aces are on fire in the WNBA Finals, with the potential to sweep the Phoenix Mercury and win the championship in four games tonight.
The Disney ad sales team has already recorded a clean sweep of a different kind, having sold out of ad inventory for the first five games of a potential seven in the series on ESPN. After last year’s WNBA audience growth and general surge in interest in women’s sports, that’s par for the course these days, according to VP of Revenue and Yield Management Jacqueline Dobies.
“It’s not a surprise to us anymore,” Dobies told Marketing Brew. “Sure as the sun is going to rise tomorrow, women’s sports are going to grow…What’s really cool about the WNBA specifically is there’s no longer these lightning-in-a-bottle moments that are driving the growth. It is clearly proven to be sustained growth.”
The reserves: Disney sold out of ad slots for the first four games of the series weeks ago, Dobies said, with game five following about a week or two ago. If the Aces do sweep the Mercury tonight, she said, her team will encourage advertisers to reallocate their spend to other women’s sports properties in the Disney portfolio.
The inventory hypothetically could have sold out during the upfront, Dobies told us, but her team intentionally kept some in reserve to sell on the scatter market, when prices are often higher. Total postseason revenue is up 110% year over year, with average unit rates up 104%, according to Disney.
The bigs: Of the 38 total brands advertising during the finals, 23 are returning vets, and 15 are showing up for the first time. The rookie advertisers spending the most include CoStar, Eli Lilly, State Street Investment Management, Wayfair, and Panera, according to Disney. In addition to running ads, State Street announced a multiyear deal with the league last month, and Eli Lilly is the jersey-patch sponsor of the Indiana Fever.
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Additionally, almost three-quarters of returning advertisers increased their spend year over year, and another 75% of advertisers bought more than one unit in the finals, Dobies said.
Clean-up: The new brands represent five new categories for the WNBA Finals, with some of the largest by spend being real estate brokerage, alcoholic beverages, and sports betting, according to Disney. There’s also been growth in existing categories like cleaning products, computer software, and pharma, Dobies said.
Last year’s WNBA season saw a spike in spend from nontraditional sports sponsors like beauty and personal-care brands, which are becoming more common in the NBA, too. Veteran sports advertisers like Google and State Farm also have had a presence during the WNBA playoffs.
“I think the true health of a sport or property is when you see growth not just from existing partners, but really expanding the tent and bringing in new industries into the ecosystem,” Dobies said, later adding that she suspected that scale, audience engagement, and ROI turned the heads of additional advertisers in the past year.
After the buzzer: With the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire at the end of the month, there’s been no shortage of off-court drama in the postseason as the players’ association negotiates with the league. The rising tension between the players and commissioner Cathy Engelbert wasn’t a deterrent for advertisers, Dobies said, with the WNBA continuing to stand strong in Disney’s sports portfolio.
“Given that it’s the fall and it’s football, I can still say that the WNBA is one of the most sought-out properties on our platform right now,” Dobies said.
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