Insights from Nine Upfront 2027
Sport: From Live Event to Cultural Slipstream
22nd September, 2026
Live sports broadcasting is no longer a two-hour window. As audience consumption habits evolve, the final siren remains critical, but is just the start of the conversation.
Fresh off the recent Nine Upfront 2027, AdNews spoke with Brent Williams, Nine’s Director of Sport and Andrew Cann, Nine’s National Commercial Director of Sport, about how brands can participate beyond the broadcast, and what this means for both scale and sustained engagement.
Q: The debate, the analysis, the emotional high after the lights go down - that’s modern sport. How can brands integrate into the post-game environment across streaming, publishing, social and outdoor?
Andrew: The biggest shift is recognising that sport is no longer confined to a single screen or a single moment. Audiences move fluidly and brands need partners that can help them participate across that entire consumption cycle.
Beyond the final siren is where brand value compounds. Today, we can turn a two-hour game into a continuous conversation. The moment play ends, audiences move into analysis, highlights, commentary and discussion. While 43% of mainstream sport engagers connect primarily through live broadcast viewing (PMAX Sports Fandom Tracker June 2026), our publishing assets, social platforms, streaming environments and outdoor network work together to extend the experience.
Our mastheads are the most read in Australia, not only can brands appear in a trusted news media environment, but alongside curated highlights across 9Now and Stan Sport, and remain present as fans continue following the story on their socials throughout their day. It’s a smorgasbord of options for brands looking to creatively tell their stories and captivate audiences who are already with the platforms they love.
Brent: Take the upcoming UK Ashes: a historic ritual shifted straight into Australian winter primetime. While the live action happens overnight, Australians wake up wanting to catch up on key moments, understand the context and join the conversation.
That’s where the opportunity has evolved. We are capturing the entire cultural slipstream of the game, making it a truly immersive experience. We’re constantly developing new and innovative ways to drop our audiences into the heart of the action - whether that’s deploying social-first FPV drones at the Winter Games to bring fans onto the slopes, or leveraging real-time AI ball-tracking data during the Australian Open to give viewers unparalleled tactical depth. We are taking fans closer to the sport than ever before.
Q: Nine’s ‘Sofa to Street’ strategy, walk us through how outdoor comes to life on game day?
Brent: We think about outdoor as a real-time extension of the broadcast experience. For major sporting moments, we build anticipation leading into the event, provide live updates while games are underway, and then transition into highlights and key takeaways immediately afterwards.
The objective is simple: wherever audiences are consuming sport, whether at home or commuting, the experience continues.
Andrew: What makes this particularly powerful is our ability to connect audience intelligence amd measurement as consumers move from the screen to physical environments throughout their day.
Q: Looking at the 365-day calendar, how should brands balance ‘owning’ a cultural pinnacle versus maintaining an always-on presence?
Andrew: Both play an important role. For brands seeking concentrated, mass-market impact, they can dominate a cultural pinnacle - like the State of Origin, Australian Open or the Olympics - through premium cross-platform packages.
At the same time, we’re seeing increasing demand for consistent year-round engagement - that’s where tapping into our rapidly expanding women’s sport portfolio works hard. Properties like the NRLW, Netball, WNBL, and Grand Slam tennis offer consistent, high-sentiment engagement with key household decision-makers throughout the entire year.
According to research we conducted in collaboration with Gemba, sports sponsorship builds awareness 25% faster than other sponsorships and delivers 7 percentage points (+20% relative) stronger sponsor recall retention when compared to other sponsorships. Kantar analysis of the Winter Olympics 2025 showed brand association drove a whopping +11.8 percentage point increase in brand consideration - when brands pair year-round presence with major pinnacles, the impact compounds rapidly.
Q: Securing the Rugby World Cup on home soil and bringing the NBL to free-to-air are massive cultural plays. Plus, women’s netball and the highly anticipated LA2028 Olympics. How will Wide World of Sports elevate these properties to ensure they capture Australia?
Brent: Live sport is one of the last remaining genres with the power to universally unite communities and countries.
For 50 years, Wide World of Sports has operated on four pillars: to elevate, excite, engage and entertain. We curate major event television, and as the NBL returns to free-to-air and we build toward monumental home-soil events like the 2027 Rugby World Cup, we continue to take content directly to where fans want to consume it.
Our broadcast is fundamentally about the athletes, the fans, and the stories we tell around them. By pairing cinematic viewing experiences with deep, human connection, we’re able to create an environment where emotional responses are at their peak.
Q: Advertising is now fully integrated across Stan Sport. What unprecedented access does this unlock?
Andrew: Stan Sport is where the super fan lives. Ad integration here means low-clutter, high-attention exposure across premium subscription properties like Premier League, UEFA Champions League, and international rugby - all in native 4K ultra-definition.
Crucially, it completes Nine’s full-funnel video ecosystem. By bridging free-to-air, BVOD and SVOD under our unified first-party data stack, we offer brands non-duplicative reach across both free and subscription environments.
Q: What are you most looking forward to for the future of sport?
Andrew: Our portfolio of local and international sports content showcase the greatest games on the earth, delivered with the accountability of a closed-loop ecosystem. It’s a single destination, and no brainer if you’re looking to grow your business. That’s exciting territory.
Brent: Sport remains one of the few environments capable of bringing large audiences together around shared moments. The platforms matter, but what makes sport so powerful is its ability to create long-term engagement and lasting connection. So I’m most looking forward to… more of it!
