YES Network placed a large bet on the Nets ahead of Kevin Durant's debut with the team this season, joining Kyrie Irving, hiking ad rates and offering advertisers ratings guarantees which were somewhat startling. YES will telecast its first Nets game of the season on Sunday and is "significantly ahead" of ad sales from the start of last season, according to the RSN's Senior VP/Sales Howard Levinson. “We’re going to double our ratings," said Levinson, noting the RSN had its best ratings ever for Nets preseason telecasts. "We’ve already been driving higher (advertising) rates," Levinson said. "The pandemic’s made it more difficult to find ratings and budgets, and the money’s been coming later than ever, but it seems to be coming to sports." Meanwhile, bookmaking is the top new advertising category. The league is allowing YES to run 10 gambling ads inside Nets game telecasts, including pre-and post-game. DraftKings, FanDuel and bet365 are in as advertisers, and the gambling category is now the second-biggest on YES, behind automobiles. Other big advertisers include Barclays (the Nets' arena naming-rights sponsor), T-Mobile (an NBA league sponsor), Ford, Volvo, Taco Bell, KFC, Subway, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Grubhub, Progressive, Allstate and Farmers Insurance.
