As live streaming continues its global takeover of sports, concerts and cultural events, the IAB Tech Lab is stepping in with a new solution to a growing problem: how to serve ads reliably during massive, unpredictable audience surges.
Anthony Katsur, chief executive of the IAB Tech Lab, this week introduced the Live Event Ad Playbook — nicknamed “LEAP” — a four-phase initiative aimed at building a more resilient and standardized technical infrastructure for digital ad delivery during live events.
The surge in streaming viewership is undeniable.
“Roughly 69% of U.S. households now stream live sports,” he said, citing recent research, in this interview with Lisa Granatstein, editorial director of Beet.TV.
But that shift has created significant hurdles for advertisers and platforms alike, especially when audience spikes during pivotal moments, such as touchdowns or breaking news, overwhelm programmatic systems.
“This is about the programmatic ecosystem not being able to scale fast enough,” said Katsur. “There’s no better time than now to fix it. Streaming is only growing, everywhere.”
LEAP: Four steps toward smarter streaming ads
The LEAP framework is structured in four key phases:
- Concurrent Streams API – Already launched, this API is designed to help platforms communicate real-time forecasts of viewer spikes to the broader ad tech ecosystem, improving delivery reliability during surges.
- Forecasting API – Up next, this tool will project viewership size, demographics and engagement, offering buyers a better sense of how to plan and price inventory.
- Prefetching Standardization – This phase will focus on caching winning ads closer to the user — at the “edge” — to reduce latency and ensure smooth playback during peak demand.
- Creative Readiness – The final phase (for now) will streamline compatibility of video creatives specifically for live events, ensuring they can be delivered rapidly and without errors.
“These steps will allow us to build a robust, interoperable, vendor-agnostic pipeline for live streaming ads,” Katsur said. “And that’s something the entire industry needs.”
Industry heavyweights back the plan
IAB Tech Lab has drawn support from major players including Amazon, NBCUniversal, Index Exchange and FreeWheel. Despite the usual challenges in aligning stakeholders with proprietary systems and business interests, Katsur said the urgency of the problem created rare consensus.
“This is a rising tide moment,” he said. “Everyone agrees we need standards to better support live event ad serving.”
The first component, Concurrent Streams API, is expected to be implemented by these companies before year-end.
“When the biggest players move,” Katsur said, “the industry tends to follow.”
Forecasting is the next frontier
Looking ahead, the Forecasting API may prove just as transformative as real-time delivery. Katsur described it as a tool for advertisers to plan campaigns more precisely, using predictive insights into audience size, demographics, and engagement.
“It’s about empowering buyers to plan accordingly,” he said.
As audiences flock to streaming for everything from the Super Bowl to sold-out concerts, ad infrastructure has lagged. With LEAP, IAB Tech Lab aims to close the gap, helping the industry capitalize on a booming trend without crashing under its own success.
