ESPN Signs Multiyear Deal To Integrate Outbrain Content Into In-House Sales Platform

ESPN and content-recommendation platform Outbrain on Thursday announced that the two "signed a multi-year, global deal" in which Outbrain will be "integrated into ESPN's in-house sales platform," according to Michelle Castillo of ADWEEK. The deal will allow third-party content "to be seeded natively into ESPN's editorial stream, including between articles in the ESPN newsfeed." Outbrain's content "reaches 550 million people around the globe, providing a larger reach than most publications could do on their own." Using a variety of factors "including what's on the Web page, previous user behavior, context of the user's visit and trending topics, it places promoted links on partner publication's pages." Previously, most Outbrain content "was contained in a widget at the bottom of the page, but by working with the publisher's direct sales team other publication's content can be sprinkled in premium locations like the right rails, homepages, mobile pages and on video" (ADWEEK.com, 3/26).