How to Check a Live Sports CTV Buy Before You Pay

Built on ADOTAT's Cox, Asellus and Georgia Bulldogs reporting, four checks to run before paying for ads sold inside a live game.

By Pesach Lattin · November 4, 2026

Live sports is sold as CTV's safest buy: real audiences, watching in real time, no bots in the bleachers. That holds only if the seller has the rights to the inventory and can prove the ad ran inside the game. ADOTAT's reporting on Asellus, Cox Media Group and the Georgia Bulldogs shows what happens when a buyer takes both on faith. This is the checklist we would run before paying, built on that reporting.

Why the safest buy still needs checking

Resellers are selling local advertisers guaranteed ad slots inside specific live games, team by team and market by market. Asellus says it has contracts for that inventory and that the best proof a client can get is watching its own spot run live. The University of Georgia says on the record it never authorized Asellus, Cox Media Group or Addressable Media to sell in-game Bulldogs placements. After six weeks of calls, no league, team or network showed a relationship with Asellus, and a senior ESPN executive says ESPN is investigating.

The starting points: The Field Kit: Live Sports Is CTV's Safest Buy. Georgia Says It Never Authorized the Game Being Sold., its brief, and whoauthorizedit.com, the ADOTAT site on the Asellus sports investigation.

Step one: find the rights holder before you find the price

Georgia's sports marketing arm says in-game ad rights sit with the network, which for 2024 meant ESPN and ABC. So the first question is not the CPM. It is who holds the in-game rights for this game, and where is the written authorization that lets this seller sell them.

Ask the seller to name a league, team or network that will confirm the relationship on the record. None of the ten platforms Asellus names as inventory sources has confirmed one. Asellus founder Carl Francese says the company does not discuss clients, resellers, partners or terms. And do not lean on a certification badge: TAG's Mike Zaneis says TAG certifies "only for fraud, brand safety, malware and transparency." Rights are not on that list. Veritad's rights-check note covers this in more detail.

Step two: read "guaranteed" like a lawyer would

Cox Media Group pitched an Atlanta advertiser "reserved inventory to ensure delivery" inside live Georgia Bulldogs games. She turned it down because she knew it could not be guaranteed. Venable litigator Lee Brenner, speaking in a personal capacity: "A 'guaranteed' placement inside a specific team's live game is an objective, verifiable representation. It is not sales puffery."

That makes the wording in your order matter. Ask what "reserved" or "guaranteed" means in the contract and what happens if the spot does not air in that game. It is also fair to ask whether the seller, or any reseller it uses, is under a regulator order about how it describes its ad services. Cox paid $880,000 under a 20-year FTC order, finalized August 2026, barring misrepresentation of its ad services. The full story: Cox Promised Ads Inside the Bulldogs Game. Even the Buyer Knew Better., with a brief and Veritad's note on guaranteed in-game placements.

Step three: make the delivery data explain itself

A delivery report is a claim too. In an Asellus 2025 NFL season report cited in the Cox story, 79% of impressions landed in the kickoff hour and about 3% after hour two. A sample Asellus report shows 596 rows where completed views exceed impressions. And Asellus told a buyer in writing it takes no deal IDs, no third-party tags and receives no break data.

So ask for:

• Delivery by hour of the game, with an explanation for any impressions after the final whistle.
• A reconciliation of any row where completed views exceed impressions.
• Your deal IDs and third-party verification tags running on the inventory.
• As-run logs matched to the network's commercial break times. Networks have started pulling their own game-day logs, so the check exists.

Step four: put it in the order

A sales deck is not a remedy. Before money moves, the order should carry chain-of-rights documentation, a written placement guarantee, as-run logs tied to break times and a refund if the spot did not air inside the game, or if the rights holder disputes the seller's authorization. The Bondstark sports CTV diligence desk has the full question list and red flags, including the biggest one: proof of delivery offered only as watching your own spot run live.

The one-minute version

• Name the rights holder and get it to confirm.
• Define "guaranteed" in writing, with a refund.
• Run your own tags and deal IDs, and get break data.
• Check delivery by hour against the network's logs.

Live sports may still be the safest buy in CTV. It is only safe once someone with the rights says so. Reporting by Pesach Lattin and ADOTAT staff; ADOTAT's standards are here.