Disney has a lot going on with sports. There’s everything from the Stanley Cup final on ESPN this year to Caitlin Clark and women’s college basketball delivering higher ad engagement for Disney and its partners. What role does sports play in the upfront this year?

This is going to be an extraordinary year for ESPN. It’s the first year we have the full rights of the SEC portfolio across our platform. We now have a very robust NCAA deal across the ESPN platform that includes eight women’s and men’s championships across college sports, and we have our expansive NFL coverage, which last year had record audience growth. Obviously, the NBA has such a passionate following, and we’re so excited about continuing to expand on that.

And then a big opportunity clients have been embracing—and we’ve been committed to for years, but it’s really starting to pay off differently now—is women’s sports. We are seeing brands really getting involved and behind women’s sports and expanding the coverage of what we have been doing since we started our partnership with the WNBA 25 years ago.

What can you tell us about early negotiations?

Every single holding company is engaged in conversation. They want to understand how we’re coming to market and what’s going on with currency because Nielsen rolled out big data—there was a lot of momentum around it, but it’s still in conversations on if it’ll be adopted or not as part of this upfront. We’re ready and willing to transact with partners however they want to. Those are the conversations.

It’s also around where we are from an ad technology perspective, how are we going to drive innovation around that and where are the partnerships going to take us in terms of opportunities to test and do things differently together. I think there’s a lot more energy in the marketplace than there was a year ago. I’m hoping that this year it will move slightly faster than last year.

Streamers such as Netflix and Amazon are joining the upfront, and Disney is rolling out programmatic offerings such as expanding Disney Real-Time Ad Exchange (DRAX). With more offerings that get away from linear, how do you see upfront week changing in the future?

I do foresee a continued investment around a marketplace that allows people to plan and reserve the right inventory at the right price for a period of time, and so the notion of the upfront and how it works has really evolved. But I think there is still an opportunity to make sure that you reserve from a planning perspective the right amount of video inventory around a scarce premium marketplace. There is an excess of supply of video, but not premium video. And we know that premium environments deliver better outcomes, more engagement, and connect with consumers in a different way.