NBCU partners with Trade Desk to make Olympic inventory biddable

Expect the Olympic torch to take a detour through the programmatic pipes en route to Paris.

NBCUniversal, which will broadcast the Olympic Games this summer, will make some of its inventory available programmatically for the first time, it announced Wednesday during the company’s annual One24 tech showcase.

To do it, the broadcaster is partnering with The Trade Desk, which will build a private marketplace that’ll let advertisers bid on everything from the US Olympic Trials to the Paris games.

The move follows the media giant’s efforts to open up more TV inventory to the programmatic world. Ryan McConville, EVP of advertising platforms and operations at NBCUniversal, said during a press briefing that the broadcaster has seen a 40% increase in advertisers in the last year, “driven mostly by programmatic access.”

Much of that is on streaming; in fact, more than 30% of Peacock ads are sold programmatically, he said.

“This ability to buy into these premium environments now in an automated way is opening up the ability for more and more marketers to come in,” he said.

Olympics ad inventory has been selling fast. Last fall, executives said that most of its inventory around the live broadcast of the opening ceremony and for halftime sponsorships of sports like basketball and soccer were sold out, Variety reported. At the time, ad sales were outpacing 2021’s broadcast of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, which reportedly netted around $1.25 billion in national advertising spend.

+1: NBCU also unveiled shoppable TV inventory at One24, called Virtual Concessions, which will officially roll out during the Games.