Nearly two-thirds of sports content is consumed via streaming, but repetitive ads are frustrating fans

During the 2024 NBA playoffs, the first bar of Rae Sremmurd’s “No Flex Zone” sent me scrambling for the mute button. The 2014 hip-hop favorite is the soundtrack to an inescapable Wingstop ad that played constantly during the playoffs and continues to show up in a high percentage of the commercial breaks I’m served on streaming services like Max and NBA League Pass.

Many sports fans share my ire for Wingstop’s “No Flex Zone” ad. Spots by telecom giant AT&T and insurance company Liberty Mutual (pictured) were equally ubiquitous, and the repeated serving of those ads was memed to death during the playoffs.

The sports fans tortured by the LiMu Emu (and Doug) are victims of misaligned frequency caps, which have become an all-too-common issue on streaming platforms that include ads. As more live sports begin broadcasting on streaming hubs, high frequency caps are threatening to frustrate viewers while also limiting value for advertisers.

Research has shown that ad frequency imbalances cut into sales figures in the long run. The damage to an overserved advertiser’s reputation could be even worse. Just take a look at the first autocomplete suggestion that shows up beneath “liberty mutual” search term:

Roku Media Head of Sports Media Joe Franzetta recently told Marketing Brew that two-thirds of sports content viewership is projected to come via streaming in 2025. So can we get those viewers some new ads, please?

Frequency capping issues are a reminder that streamer-side advertising is still a nascent industry

On TV, there are more safeguards that prevent viewers from being bombarded with repetitive ads. The landscape of streaming ads, however, is fractured. Buys can come from multiple sources

, with everyone from streamers to parent companies to individual networks to programmatic buyers carving out their own sections of an SVOD hub’s inventory.

Thomas Trudeau, the Director of Innovation Partnerships for the IPG Media Lab, told Tubefilter about another factor that contributes to the overall issue of misaligned frequency caps: Limited advertiser rosters. Streaming platforms are still convincing brands and agencies to reallocate their budgets, and that makes it harder to create diverse and nonrepetitive ad breaks.

Trudeau also noted that streaming services typically have more personalized ads compared to linear broadcasts, which can “lead to ad repetition if there isn’t enough variety of ads to match a viewer’s profile.” He expects inefficiencies to remain the norm “until a confluence of inventory scale and operational maturity is reached.”

So is there a solution?

The rise of sports on streaming platforms feels like an inevitability at this point, so brands like Max, Netflix, and Hulu would be wise to strive for the operation maturity Trudeau speaks of. Some SVOD hubs are already moving in that direction. Tubi, for example, has made a big deal out of its ad capping technology, though viewers have nevertheless complained about repetitive and mismatched ad breaks on the Fox-owned hub.

In other cases, companies on the marketing side of the equation are trying to solve the problem themselves. David Kohl, the Co-Founder and CEO of marketing firm Symitri, told Tubefilter that ad frequency issues can be solved through data-driven analysis.

“Brands are making million-dollar marketing decisions with incomplete data while publishers are struggling to deliver an impactful ad experience that balances data accessibility and data protection,” Kohl said. “When CTV advertisers and publishers connect their audiences through our real-time data cleanroom, they get the precision, reach, and performance of their first-party data in real-time. And when you do that, you can actually enable the frequency capping required to improve the viewing experience.”

With so many marketing minds working on this problem, a brighter future for streaming frequency caps is hopefully en route. If that solution could arrive before this season’s NBA playoffs, I’d be most appreciative.