FreeWheel powers ION’s ability for advertisers to target and reach viewers across all screens

The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP) is partnering with FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the television advertising industry, to increase advertising opportunities across women’s live sports content on ION, Scripps’ national sports and entertainment network that reaches every U.S. TV household over-the-air and on all major pay TV and connected TV services.

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Bringing audiences the excitement of WNBA and NWSL games alongside original programming like the “State Farm^® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight on ION,” ION is offering brands a premium way to be part of the energy around women’s sports. Last month, Scripps also announced that ION will be the exclusive television home to both the inaugural SI Women’s Games and the Elevance Health Women’s Fort Myers Tip Off college basketball tournament.

Through this partnership, Scripps and Freewheel aim to not only increase investment in women’s sports but also bring new advertisers to the arena.

“In addition to surges in viewership across our tentpole women’s sports content on ION last year, we saw more than two dozen new brands advertising with Scripps,” says Seth Walters, head of CTV sales at Scripps. “As the demand for women’s sports content accelerates and viewers increasingly seek it on streaming and connected TV platforms, we want to continue to bring more brands into the fold through our expanding roster of live women’s sports and our always-on distribution.”

FreeWheel’s focus on the growth of programmatic advertising across sports and live events in streaming is reflected in an enhanced product suite built to handle the unique challenges of live TV. With expedited programmatic activation via creative pre-approvals, tools to anticipate real time viewership that ensure proper pacing and ad-serving at scale, FreeWheel is ensuring that programmatic advertising can support the continued growth of live sports across streaming.

“CTV monetization through the first eight weeks of this NWSL on ION season has seen a major uptick vs. last season, increasing over 200%,” says Walters. “We are looking forward to working with FreeWheel to power this explosive streaming growth and unlock new monetization opportunities for the forthcoming season of the WNBA.”

The return of the WNBA on ION this Friday, May 16, follows a successful 2024 season where average viewership for the State Farm^® WNBA Friday Night Spotlight increased by 133% over 2023 and attracted more than 23 million unique viewers across games and wrap shows.

“Coordination between publishers, advertisers, and tech partners is critical to ensure the success of these live events,” says Greg Bel, Vice President, Head of Supply at FreeWheel. “Scripps and ION are meaningful players in the connected TV space, and, through our partnership, we are ensuring that advertisers who rely on programmatic as their primary buying strategy can take advantage of the growing momentum of women’s sports to put their brands in front of highly engaged audiences.”

The popularity of women’s sports is set to continue growing, with 36% of fans who do not currently watch women’s sports saying they plan to in the next 12 months, according to Comcast Advertising's 2024 “Behind the Remote: A Deep Dive into Sports Viewership & Fandom” report.

About Scripps:

Scripps Sports serves professional and college sports leagues, conferences and teams with local market depth and national broadcast reach. Scripps Sports currently has partnerships with the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), the National Hockey League’s (NHL) 2024 Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, the 2023 Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, the new Utah Mammoth and the NCAA’s Big Sky Conference. Scripps Sports is a division of The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP), a Fortune 1000 American media company.

About FreeWheel

FreeWheel empowers all segments of The New TV Ecosystem. We are structured to provide the full breadth of solutions the advertising industry needs to achieve their goals. We provide the technology, data enablement and convergent marketplaces required to ensure buyers and sellers can transact across all screens, across all data types, and all sales channels, in order to ensure the ultimate goal – results for marketers. With offices in New York, Chicago, London, Paris, Beijing, and across the globe, FreeWheel, A Comcast Company, stands to advocate for the entire industry through the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video. For more information, please visit freewheel.com, and follow us on X and LinkedIn.

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