Live sport remains one of the most powerful drivers of digital advertising revenue. Premium audiences, high engagement, and moments that really matter all make live events uniquely attractive to advertisers.

In practice though, live sports streaming also creates some of the hardest conditions for advertising to perform well. Peak concurrency, tightly timed breaks, and fragmented device environments can all limit the revenue platforms are able to realize - often at the exact moments when audience value is highest.

Today the challenge isn’t whether live advertising can be delivered. It’s whether it can be delivered predictably and efficiently at peak scale.

Peak concurrency is a revenue constraint, not just a scale challenge

In many mature streaming environments, video delivery itself is no longer the primary bottleneck. Platforms have invested heavily in distribution, resilience, and scale, and those foundations are generally in place.

Advertising workflows are a different story. Even where ad workflows are designed for scale, live peaks can expose timing and dependency risks - especially when ad decisioning and stitching are still heavily dependent on last-second execution at the moment a break begins.

When that happens, peak concurrency introduces a set of familiar problem

• Latency in ad decisioning
• Missed or under-filled ad breaks
• More conservative bidding behavior from advertisers
• Revenue leakage during the most valuable live moments

Viewers may never notice anything wrong - the stream keeps playing - but the impact shows up very clearly in fill rates, CPMs, and overall commercial performance.

Designing live advertising workflows for readiness

What consistently makes the difference in live environments is preparation.

At Deltatre, we take the view that live advertising performance improves when monetization is treated as part of the live platform architecture, not as a bolt-on. That means designing workflows that give advertising systems visibility and time to prepare before peak demand arrives - without compromising viewer experience or operational control.

By providing early insight into upcoming ad breaks and preparing workflows ahead of time, critical decisions can happen under less pressure - when systems have capacity and buyers have more confidence in delivery.

Using SCTE-35 signaling to prepare ad inventory

A key part of this approach is using industry-standard signaling to identify and prepare upcoming ad opportunities in live streams.

Depending on the environment, Deltatre’s streaming platform can either ingest SCTE-35 markers directly from live broadcast production or insert platform-generated markers where required.

These markers provide standardized segmentation signals for live content. In practice, they often include provider-defined metadata that indicates the nature or context of an upcoming break - for example, a scheduled interval in play.

That timing and contextual metadata can then be used to prepare advertising inventory and prioritize brand categories upstream, ahead of the live break itself.

Context-aware advertising for live sports

Live sport is rich in context, and that context matters.

To give a simple example, in a live cricket match, segmentation metadata may indicate a scheduled interval in play, like a drinks break. By passing that information through workflows in advance, campaigns that align naturally with that moment - such as refreshment or beverage brands - can be prioritized when ads are prepared.

Approached this way:

• Inventory is ready before peak concurrency
• Advertising aligns more closely with the live moment and audience mindset
• Decisioning doesn’t introduce latency at playback

And importantly, all of this happens without impacting the viewer’s experience.

Delivering consistent advertising performance at scale

Preparing advertising workflows ahead of demand fundamentally changes how live advertising behaves under pressure.

Reducing last-second decisioning and shifting workload requests earlier allows platforms to:

• Maintain higher and more consistent fill rates
• Support stronger competition for premium live inventory
• Improve pricing confidence during high-value moments

The outcome isn’t just technical stability. It’s more predictable, scalable advertising revenue during live events.

Supporting large-scale sports and media platforms

This live-aware approach to advertising is applied across a range of large-scale sports, media, and telco streaming platforms where live events sit at the heart of the service.

Examples include large-scale streaming services including Rogers Sportsnet+ and major sports and entertainment platforms such as Sky Sports Now New Zealand. In these environments, early ad break preparation combined with SSAI execution is designed to support consistent commercial performance at peak scale.

Advertising enablement is a platform capability

One of the biggest lessons I’ve seen repeated over time is that live advertising success doesn’t come from adding isolated components.

It comes from platforms that are designed around live reality - where signaling, orchestration, preparation, and delivery are connected as a cohesive system. Technology enables scale, but outcomes depend on how well the building blocks are joined together.

That philosophy underpins how Deltatre approaches live streaming and advertising enablement across OTT and pay-TV environments.

Closing thoughts

Peak concurrency is an inherent characteristic of live sports streaming. Left unaddressed, it constrains advertising performance and limits revenue at the moments that matter most.

That challenge is becoming more consequential as the emphasis of live sports rights has risen sharply over the past 24 months. With greater investment and higher expectations tied to these deals, platforms can no longer afford inefficiencies that leave revenue on the table during peak moments.

Securing live sports rights can support subscription growth, but many services are also deploying hybrid monetization. The question is whether your platform is operationally ready to monetize live peaks consistently, within your rights, policy, and viewer-experience constraints.

By preparing advertising workflows in advance, using industry-standard signaling and contextual metadata, platforms can support increasing fill rates, strengthen advertiser confidence, and maximize monetization when audiences are at their largest.

As live audiences continue to grow, alongside the cost to secure them, the platforms that prioritize readiness over reaction will be the ones best positioned to capture the full value of live sport.