CBS launches ad network focused on college sports

CHICAGO (Reuters) - CBS Corp on Wednesday announced the launch of an online ad network focused on college sports, in a move to entice media buyers to spend more money with the television broadcaster by offering them a way to more effectively target young, male fans.

The creation of CBS College Sports Media will offer media buyers the opportunity to advertise on college sports coverage websites, including CBS's CBSSports.com, CBS College Sports Network's 215 college partners and NCAA.com. Those sites reached more than 10 million unique visitors in March.

Over the past year, more companies have begun to offer targeted ad networks -- such as ones focused on finance or women -- for media buyers used to buying ads in bulk through intermediary firms, said Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager of CBSSports.com and CBSNews.com. College sports offers access to a mostly male audience, ages 18 to 49.

"It's for ease of buying for the media buyer," Kint said in a telephone interview. "The agencies who want to target the college sports fan across CBS, they can easily buy across all of our online businesses that have an affinity with the college sports fan."

Kint said media buyers are spending tens of millions of dollars online with CBS in an effort to target college sports fans, and the new ad network should only help CBS boost that amount.

For example, a video streaming product for the NCAA college basketball tournament in March generated about $23 million in online ad revenue alone, he said. The new platform will allow CBS, which has the rights to cover all NCAA championships, to more easily serve media buyers in the other 11 months.

CBS officials also pointed out that media buyers can bundle the new ad platform with CBS sports coverage on television.

"CBS College Sports Media will allow us to streamline the process of selling our digital collegiate properties while offering clients packages to be bundled with television assets from CBS Sports and CBS College Sports Network, giving advertisers multiple platforms from which to deliver their message," said Jo Ann Ross, president of network and interactive sales at CBS.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)