- Shahnaz Mahmud

NEW YORK Sports Media has created the Sports Media Thoroughbred Television Network, which will serve advertisements to 252,000 TV monitors in 120 tracks across the U.S. throughout the 2008 racing season.

In addition to partnering with horse tracks, the network includes dog tracks, off-track betting facilities and casinos.

Company CEO Dan Kosth is bullish on sports as a platform for advertisers in the digital out-of-home space: "We just kept following the news with digital out of home and decided that sports by far would be the best branding platform. When digital out of home began, it was just about running ads. Now everybody is scrambling to get content -- and we already have that through live sports action."

Kosth said digital OOH nets are attractive because they provide certified attendance figures to advertisers in a measurable way. "Whether it's done by the league or the facility, it's all audited, so we know how many people are actually there," he said. Clear demographics, having a captive audience for at least three hours and the loyalty to sports brands also play a part, he said.

Advertisers for the net include Party Poker.com and Absolute Poker.com. As Sports Media builds out its national sales force, however, beverage companies, travel sites and wireless banking are on its target list of advertisers, Kosth said.

Sports Media is in talks with a number of sports leagues, such as Nascar, to establish similar digital networks with its technology partner Chyron Corp.'s ChyTV system, he added.