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Nine’s WWOS set to add more ad opportunities in 2021

The Nine Network’s Wide World of Sports is looking to deliver another bumper year of ratings and revenue in 2021.

Hot on the heels of the Stan Sport Wimbledon and Roland Garros announcement, Nine’s director of sport, Brent Williams, shared during the media upfront today that the network had also secured the 2023 Ashes Tests between Australia and England.

“Stan Sport is a groundbreaking audience opportunity,” said Williams. “Our Free to air capability and Stan Sports allows us to cater for all evolving viewing habits. Live, ad-free and on-demand.”

Anne Gruber, Nine’s head of content partnerships – sport, said that the pandemic that increased the power of sports fandom. “We connect with people, and the stories that they connect to,” she said. “When we are talking to brands and marketers, they are asking us to bring out more of those stories for people to connect to.”

She added: “We are looking at launching new advertising formats across all of our line up next year.”

The 2020 State of Origin has seen Nine partner with Menulog among other advertisers. According to Menulog, CMO Simon Cheng, orders on the State of Origin days “have been the best that we have seen”.

A clip from the State of Origin II ad by Menulog.

“It was no coincidence that we chose the State of Origin,” said Cheng. “TV is an important part of our mix.. and sport plays a really big part of that.”

He added that the addition of Snoop Dog as an ambassador has helped the brand to appeal to a far broader audience.

“We are very pleased with the current results. Last quarter we grew triple digits, which is unbelievable for a 15 year old company,” added Cheng.

Gruber said that next year Nine wants the State of Origin to be an even bigger opportunity for brands.

“State of Origin is our Super Bowl, it is the biggest rivalry that we have,” she said. “We want to give the opportunity, and challenge, to marketers next year to use State of Origin as a platform to launch the best creative they have ever launched. We will have a panel of judges and will be giving away $1 million in advertising inventory across all the Nine platforms.”

Tennis is also set to be a big focus for Nine in 2021, starting off with The Australian Open in January. “This year at The Australian Open we will be looking to use 3AW to really dig deep into local community connections with tennis,” said Gruber. “If you are talking about local connections and intimacy, radio is a really important platform.”

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