PulsePoint is expanding its healthcare-focused programmatic offering into live sports, launching a curated marketplace designed to give pharmaceutical advertisers access to live professional and college sports inventory through a single activation point.
Announced August 25, the Live Sports Curated Market extends PulsePoint’s existing Curated Markets strategy across CTV, streaming audio, podcasts, endemic media and display. Rather than requiring buyers to source individual publishers and negotiate separate inventory relationships, the model packages supply into predefined markets that can be activated through PulsePoint’s platform.
The move comes as live sports becomes increasingly fragmented across linear television, connected TV and streaming services. Nielsen reported that sports represented nearly 30% of ad-supported TV viewing among adults 25–54 in the fourth quarter of 2025, while streaming accounted for 48.2% of ad-supported TV viewing in the second quarter of 2026.
PulsePoint says more than 120 million U.S. consumers will watch live sports digitally in 2026 and cites research indicating that 64% of those viewers pay attention to advertising during games. Those figures come from the company’s announcement; independent research also points to the growing importance of streaming sports. Paramount Advertising estimates that digital live-sports audiences will reach 121.1 million in 2026.
For healthcare marketers, the appeal is less about sports sponsorship and more about supply aggregation. Pharma advertisers face additional targeting, contextual and brand-safety requirements compared with many consumer categories. A curated marketplace can reduce the operational burden of identifying suitable inventory while providing a standardized buying route across multiple publishers.
That matters as sports rights increasingly migrate to streaming platforms. The IAB expects U.S. digital video advertising to exceed $80 billion in 2026, with CTV spending projected to grow 11% year over year. The organization specifically identifies the movement of major sports rights to streaming services as a contributor to CTV’s continued expansion.
PulsePoint’s wider Curated Markets framework is divided into channel and content markets, endemic markets and performance markets. The latter uses campaign performance feedback to optimize toward metrics such as viewability, video completion rate and engagement.
For advertisers, the potential advantage is consolidation: one buying workflow can span premium sports and other digital environments without recreating publisher-level sourcing processes. For publishers, curated supply can provide another route into healthcare advertising demand, although inclusion in such marketplaces also increases the importance of transparent supply paths, inventory quality and measurement.
The competitive question is whether curated marketplaces can offer enough differentiation beyond conventional private marketplaces, DSP supply packages and direct publisher relationships. In healthcare, the answer will likely depend on audience quality, privacy safeguards and the ability to connect media exposure with measurable outcomes.
Live sports also introduces a measurement challenge. High attention and large audiences do not automatically translate into healthcare campaign effectiveness. Buyers will increasingly expect frequency control, audience validation, contextual suitability and outcome measurement alongside premium inventory access.
Market Landscape
Live sports is becoming a key battleground in the convergence of programmatic, CTV and premium video. Nielsen says sports accounted for 29% of all ad-supported viewing in Q4 2025, while S&P Global estimates that roughly 74% of Americans watch live sports.
For healthcare adtech platforms, aggregating sports inventory creates an opportunity to bring traditionally complex premium media into more standardized programmatic workflows.
Strategic Outlook
PulsePoint’s launch reflects a broader shift from buying individual media environments toward packaged, outcome-oriented supply. The company’s challenge will be proving that curation improves efficiency and performance rather than simply simplifying access.
If it can combine healthcare audience intelligence with transparent premium sports inventory and credible measurement, the model could become increasingly relevant as pharma marketers extend omnichannel campaigns into CTV and streaming.
Top Insights
- Live sports is moving deeper into programmatic: Streaming distribution is creating more addressable sports inventory.
- Healthcare buyers gain a consolidated buying route: PulsePoint packages supply from multiple publishers into one marketplace.
- CTV strengthens the opportunity: Digital video spending is forecast to surpass $80 billion in the U.S. in 2026.
- Curation must prove incremental value: Inventory aggregation alone will not justify shifting spend from direct deals or established DSPs.
- Measurement remains critical: Healthcare advertisers need evidence connecting premium media exposure with campaign and business outcomes.
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