As streaming audiences surge, IAB Tech Lab unveils a new playbook to prevent live event ad meltdowns.
Live streaming is having a moment—a very big, very global one. From Super Bowls and Taylor Swift concerts to breaking news and esports, live digital content now dominates how audiences engage with culture in real time. But for advertisers, those peaks in attention come with a major pain point: programmatic infrastructure can’t scale fast enough when millions tune in at once.
Enter the IAB Tech Lab’s LEAP (Live Event Ad Playbook), a four-phase initiative designed to fix exactly that.
“Roughly 69% of U.S. households now stream live sports,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, in a recent interview with Beet.TV. “There’s no better time than now to fix this.”
Why Live Events Are Breaking AdTech
The problem is straightforward: when viewer counts spike, programmatic ad systems often buckle. Think of the moment right after a game-winning touchdown or during a breaking news alert—audiences flood in, but ad servers stall, ads fail to load, and the opportunity for monetization gets wasted.
Katsur frames the issue clearly: “This is about the programmatic ecosystem not being able to scale fast enough.”
To address this, IAB Tech Lab isn’t suggesting incremental fixes. LEAP is a ground-up reimagination of how live event advertising should work in the streaming age.
LEAP’s Four-Phase Plan to Future-Proof Streaming Ads
LEAP aims to standardize and scale digital ad delivery for high-traffic moments using a modular, interoperable framework. Here’s how it breaks down:
- Concurrent Streams API
Already live, this tool enables platforms to forecast real-time viewer spikes, allowing ad systems to adjust before they get overwhelmed. - Forecasting API (Next up)
Will provide predictive analytics on audience size, demographics, and engagement levels—critical for media buyers planning large-scale live campaigns. - Prefetching Standardization
Targets latency issues by caching winning ads closer to the user, reducing buffering and improving playback reliability during critical moments. - Creative Readiness
Ensures that ad creatives are fully compatible with live environments, streamlining playback and reducing errors under load.
“These steps will allow us to build a robust, interoperable, vendor-agnostic pipeline for live streaming ads,” said Katsur. “And that’s something the entire industry needs.”
Big Names, Big Momentum
This isn’t a theoretical framework. Amazon, NBCUniversal, Index Exchange, and FreeWheel are already backing the initiative, with the Concurrent Streams API expected to roll out before the end of the year.
And with major stakeholders aligned—despite competitive friction—momentum appears real.
“This is a rising tide moment,” Katsur noted. “Everyone agrees we need standards to better support live event ad serving.”
Forecasting: The Next Big Frontier
The upcoming Forecasting API could be just as transformational. Think of it as the Waze for media buyers: providing detailed, real-time insights into traffic (viewership), route options (audience segments), and potential slowdowns (platform issues).
“It’s about empowering buyers to plan accordingly,” Katsur emphasized.
That kind of predictive intelligence could make live event planning far more efficient—and profitable.
Why This Matters Now
Live streaming isn’t just another channel; it’s quickly becoming the default way global audiences consume must-watch moments. And yet, most current ad infrastructure was built for the on-demand era—not the real-time surges that define live viewing.
LEAP represents an effort to bring AdTech up to speed with modern consumption behaviors, finally addressing a gap that has frustrated both advertisers and platforms.
The stakes are huge. Missed impressions during live events are missed revenue opportunities—and in the cutthroat world of streaming, those losses can scale quickly.
If LEAP delivers on its promise, it won’t just fix a technical bottleneck. It could redefine how brands participate in real-time culture—with speed, accuracy, and zero crashes.
