Paramount ANZ’s broadcast and streaming coverage of sports reached 11.9 million Australians in 12 months. Our track record has seen us almost quadruple the A-Leagues audience, overachieve on MotoGP performance and grow the next generation of audiences for the Lexus Melbourne Cup.

When viewers watch our sport, they engage for long periods of time. The average Melbourne Cup Carnival viewer watched for 95 minutes. An average football fan has watched 336 minutes of Paramount football content this year and an average of 13 matches across Isuzu UTE A-League, Australia Cup and International football.

10 Play’s growth off the back of football has been phenomenal, with over 1 million new registered users last season alone. And in an industry-first, we’re proud to provide free access to all Liberty A-Leagues women’s matches. This places the growth of women’s football right in the path of our growing 10 Play platform, particularly its core audience of women 18 to 39.

It’s such an exciting time to be a part of the growth of football in our country – and that presents a massive opportunity for advertisers.

Formula 1: More fans in one weekend than others deliver in a season

There are two absolute truths in sport right now.

One of those truths is that the F1 is the sexiest sport on the planet.

In an incredible reminder of the power of sport to engage audiences at scale, in April, the F1 attracted its largest crowd ever for the 2022 Formula 1 Heineken Australian Grand Prix. Fans flocked to Network 10 and 10 Play to watch the thrilling action of the weekend, reaching 3.2 million Australians (up 288 per cent on other broadcasters). In one weekend, Network 10 and 10 Play reached more F1 fans than a whole season on other broadcasters.

F1: Huge female uptake

Meanwhile on broadcast, the audience has never been more female-skewing or younger with female share increasing from 35.4 per cent to 47.5 per cent. Ticket sales also saw an increase in female attendees. Australian Grand Prix Corporation CEO Andrew Westacott said: “Ticket purchasing used to be 75 per cent male to 25 per cent female. Purchasing for this year was 60:40 men to women, so there is a huge increase in female purchasing."

The other absolute truth in sport right now is that ‘Drive To Survive’ style content is the most overused phrase in sport. Sure, it’s easy to say that the Netflix documentary has contributed to attracting new and broader audiences, however, it was the brave and strategic decisions by F1 in the boardroom that led to faster, better and stronger racing, enabling more teams to have bigger moments. As these new fans come into the sport, they are exposed to a much stronger and more engaging product.

Game on for Paramount sports locker

Paramount’s sports locker features global sports, iconic moments with devoted fans who love to see their sport on the local stage. Our sport audiences are anything but generic, they embrace our local insight that superchargers our F1 for Australian audiences, they revel in the thunder of galloping hooves within racing’s most premium coverage, the Melbourne Cup Carnival and just can’t get enough of the roar of a sold-out AAMI Park when Jamie Maclaren hits the back of the net… there is nothing like it.

They have more passion, more attention and more engagement than regular fans and they are unique – 33 per cent of Melbourne Cup Carnival viewers don’t watch any other major sport, 32 per cent of Football viewers don’t watch any other major sport and 32 per cent of F1 viewers don’t watch any other major sport.

So, Australian sports opportunities don’t have to be limited to one or two so-called mainstream sports.  And brands should definitely look beyond legacy approaches to advertising.

Partnerships with global-leading technology businesses are key to Paramount’s strategy, allowing us to innovate and adapt at speed.

Our new ad products like BrandBOOST and AdSelector via Innovid, Dynamic Video co-created in partnership with KERV, ACR (automatic content recognition) driven audience targeting provided by our partnership with Samba TV, alongside The Checkout with Twitter, provide next-generation ad products to target, connect and engage audiences in compelling new ways and deliver results.

In the Paramount sports locker, we talk to unique sports fans like never before creating unparallel opportunities for advertisers using world class ad innovations. Which means it’s game on for advertisers looking to kick bigger goals and accelerate away from the competition.