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 across the 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 “Caitlin Clark,” “logo three pointers,” “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 didn’t 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 EVP and Chief Commercial Officer Joey Graziano, who led the in-house deal. “We now have a platform allowing us to have the advertising inventory that goes alongside the articles written about those key moments, regardless of the publisher.”
At its core, the process combines PS&E’s own first-party database from 50 states and 57 countries with Converge by Deloitte for Sports’ analytics that identify the look-alike behaviors and preferences of 250 million sports and entertainment fans. So, a fan anywhere in the world who perhaps admires both Clark and automobiles could instantly see an ad for PS&E sponsor Lexus on keyworded digital stories about the Fever star — courtesy of Yieldmo Sports, which reads the open web in real time and acquires the ad space from the publisher via AI. PS&E and Fieldhouse Media Network will also launch a direct marketing campaign through email, texts and their owned and operated channels, based again on Deloitte analytics and their own data collected from hosting NBA and WNBA all-star games, NBA Finals and WNBA semifinals in recent seasons.
“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. And this is the first time someone’s brought that to sports. And the real difference, at least for me, is while those brands are incredibly powerful and have amazing reach, they have customers — and we have fans.”