Megaphone, the leader in enterprise podcast hosting and advertising technology, today announced that it has signed The Athletic, subscription-based publisher and home to the best storytelling in sports. Under the newly formed partnership, The Athletic will use Megaphone Targeted Marketplace (MTM) to deliver targeted ads to its millions of monthly podcast listeners, supplementing its direct sales and boosting monetization of its podcast inventory.
The signing of The Athletic signals the ongoing expansion of Megaphone’s foothold in sports podcasting, supporting more networks and programs than any other enterprise service in the space, with the likes of ESPN, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, Fox, SB Nation, The Ringer, and a long roster of others on board — 700+ shows and 80MM+ in monthly downloads. With audiences turning their attention to an unprecedented slate of Fall sports and with podcasting on the rise, Megaphone’s expanded presence provides advertisers and sports marketers one of the most powerful opportunities to date.
“With prime sports seasons underway and the future of live audience sports being reimagined, podcasting represents the ultimate opportunity,” said Brendan Monaghan, CEO of Megaphone. “And we are absolutely thrilled to be partnering with The Athletic.”
The features that The Athletic will leverage are part of Megaphone’s enterprise-level podcast hosting, publishing, dynamic ad insertion, campaign management, forecasting, and analytics tools. MTM also allows advertisers to target podcast audiences at scale across many shows and episodes.
