Upfront deals 2025: Streaming takes over
The Trade Desk
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Welcome back to The Current, I’m Travis Clark. This week, I wrote about how streaming dominated upfront deals — and how it reflects a big change in advertiser expectations. Plus, a pair of sports stories from my colleagues outside the U.S.: Tash in Australia dove into the rise of the Indian Premier League, and Zac in London looked at how European sports are gaining steam with American audiences.
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Top stories you need to know:
1. 2025 upfront deals reveal just how powerful streaming has become
This year’s TV upfront season put an exclamation point on a simple truth: the entire marketplace is shifting towards flexibility and performance.
2. How JioHotstar made the Indian Premier League a must-buy for global advertisers
The most recent season of the IPL rewrote the advertising playbook, thanks largely to a surge in connected TV viewing.
3. How European sports are winning U.S. streaming audiences
F1, soccer, tennis…oh my! The floodgates are open for European sports to make a splash in the U.S. and streamers are taking advantage.
4. Ai4 2025: Health care’s AI moment — scale or be left behind
At “America’s largest AI event” in Vegas last week, the hottest topic was… health care? Companies are embedding the tech deep into their operations.
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Inside track:
How Instacart drafted mascots like Kool-Aid Man for its first Big Game ad
Remember Mountain Dew’s Puppy Monkey Baby? Instacart bet that you did for its first-ever Big Game ad during this year’s game.
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Lightbulb moments:
The golden age of social media is over, and smart brands are already moving on
“Indeed, as consumer attention fragments, media consumption patterns are shifting toward more intentional, high-quality environments.”
— John Tegner, director of product marketing, The Trade Desk
Havas Edge’s Sean Kalub sees a strong scatter market in the face of tariffs
“At this point, given tariffs, given the economic outlook, we’re getting a lot of advertisers wanting to hold dollars back slightly and take a wait-and-see approach on how everything unfolds.”
— Sean Kalub, EVP of video investments, Havas Edge
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