What you need to know:

• Covid permitting, the Australian Open is expected to return in 2022, starting January 17.
• Nine is touting deeper data and a 'total TV strategy' for the event, with its metro and regional sales teams fully integrated in a 'baseline and net' combination.
• The network returned recent remarks served by rival Seven, which has openly admitted it will target Nine's tennis audiences following a boom in unique audience IDs across sports scooped up via people logging in to watch the Olympics.
• Sports sales boss Matt Granger told Mi3 that Nine remains "the only" media company that can do integrated data at scale.

Break point

Ahead of the Australian Open and a buoyant Seven West Media, Nine reckons it is "the only" media company that can provide data at scale across its key sporting properties.

The network is confident it will secure audiences and advertising dollars in droves next year, with the tournament currently set to go ahead from January 17 with live audiences, following major interruptions caused by Covid in 2021. Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley has outlined new protocols that should smooth operations in 2022, including a two-week "player bubble".

Despite Australia's current situation, Nine Director of Sports - Sales Matt Granger told Mi3 marketers should expect a return to normality for the tournament this year, with additional opportunities to reach audiences.

The sales boss also batted away any concerns around rival networks targeting – and potentially undercutting – its audiences, with Seven openly discussing plans to snare tennis ad dollars by wooing advertisers with tennis fans it attracted during the Olympics, which added 2.5m unique and fresh IDs to its data platform.

Seven's Audience Intelligence Director, Andrew Brain, last month told Mi3:  “If you look at things like the tennis, Nine now has the rights. But we know tennis will be highly viewed within the Olympics – and we can pull the tennis audience back into RedIQ [Seven's customer data platform, or CDP]."

“In the future, for other sports, if we can understand what the rights look like and profile the audiences – the value in that is huge.”

But Granger said Nine isn't phased and remains confident marketers will see the proof in Nine's track record of "loyal" sports audiences and dedication to its own unified ID strategy. 

“Nine has been using its verified consumer IDs for over five years to target based on content consumption, and it’s great to see some of the other TV networks looking to do the same," Granger said.

“However, with over 14million IDs built on the back of highly engaged and loyal audiences such as those watching NRL and tennis, Nine is also able to overlay consumer attributes and buying behaviours at scale, providing a platform that can truly shift the dial for brands.

Granger claimed: “Nine is the only media company that can combine great content and market-leading data at a scale that is both effective and efficient for brands.”

Granger added that Nine has already seen a strong swell of interest, with major partners such as Kia and Samsung returning, while hinting that brands that stepped away from sports sponsorship for Covid-related reasons are also no weighing up investment.

Playing doubles

Nine also believes it has another ace up its sleeve in 2022: a combined metro and regional sales team enabling brands to buy complete audiences across multiple channels.

After inking a new affiliate contract with the WIN Corporation in March, which runs for seven years, Nine elected to bring together its sales teams, a project led by former Vizeum CEO Ashley Earnshaw.

Granger said the combined team means marketers the can target the 4.2m regional viewers Nine attracts with the tennis across its entire portfolio, instead of Nine's previously separate regional-metro approach.

"Brands can now speak directly to those regional audiences across print, radio, digital and TV, providing a massive combination of touchpoints when it comes to tennis," Granger said.