Published on: September 10, 2026
Magnite , the largest independent sell-side advertising company, today announced major milestones across its live streaming business, cementing its position as the premier partner for live streaming advertising. As media owners prepare for a massive fall lineup, anchored by the return of NFL and college football, Magnite is scaling a global marketplace for live, built on a foundation of verified, event-level transparency for the industry’s biggest live moments.
Historically buyers have struggled to differentiate between truly real-time live content and shoulder content. Magnite’s Live Scheduler allows media owners to signal upcoming live events well in advance, giving buyers the foresight needed to plan and execute campaigns with verified live inventory, so they can reach engaged audiences precisely when key moments happen.
Since launching Live Scheduler last November, 37 media owners globally have utilized the technology to seamlessly schedule and monetize over 4,000 live events, including high-stakes broadcasts like the FIFA World Cup, NFL Monday Night Football, the NHL Playoffs, as well as major cultural moments including the Academy Awards.
“Live programming combines highly valuable content and highly attentive audiences, creating powerful opportunities for advertisers,” said Jamie Power, SVP, Addressable Sales at Disney Advertising. “Supporting those moments requires scalable, reliable technology that can keep pace with audience demand. Magnite helps us enable and manage the unique demands of live streaming while simultaneously creating more opportunities for the marketplace.”
By streamlining access and overcoming the technical complexity of live CTV execution, Magnite is opening up incremental growth for publishers. From January to July, Magnite has seen a 56% year over year increase in global live sports ad spend with over 5,800 advertisers spending on live sports inventory that did not spend in the year prior.
“Live events bring people together around the moments and conversations they care about most, creating meaningful opportunities for brands to connect with audiences,” said Holly Dunn, Managing Partner, Head of Investment & Activation, Havas Media Network North America. “As audiences and media continue to fragment, marketers are increasingly looking to sports and live programming as a core part of the media mix, not simply a one-off activation. These environments offer something increasingly valuable by creating shared experiences at scale and connecting brands to culture in real time. Magnite helps make these opportunities more accessible, giving brands the flexibility to reach the right audiences and engage with the moments that matter”.
Magnite’s live strength is underpinned by several key capabilities designed to drive seamless monetization:
“Live streaming offers advertisers an unprecedented opportunity to capture massive, highly engaged audiences in real time,” said Mike Laband, Group SVP of Revenue at Magnite. “We are democratizing access to this live inventory in a way that works seamlessly for both sides of the market. By continuously innovating across our supply infrastructure, we are unlocking net-new monetization opportunities for media owners while providing buyers with an effortless, transparent doorway into verified live media.”
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