Sports Digital Network (SDN) has launched the first phase of its DOOH network in sports and recreational venues across the country.

The new network has established partnerships with Canlan Sports (the largest operator of privately held arenas in Canada), Nustadia Recreation (the country’s largest manager of municipal facilities) and ClubLink (the largest owner of Canadian private golf courses).

Between its partners’ venues, SDN has more than 100 digital screens from Vancouver to Atlantic Canada, according to Mark Wilson, the company’s SVP. The company’s goal is to be in 150 facilities by September 2023. Wilson says the company is currently forming its Québec strategy to establish a presence in Montréal and Québec City, followed by a building out to other markets boasting a population of 100,000-plus: Kingston, Peterborough, Barrie and Sudbury.

Ads can be bought direct or programmatically; Wilson says the company has “two or three” direct buying clients, and uses Broadsign as its SSP.

The main focus while establishing the network is arenas, Wilson tells MiC, followed by golf courses and indoor soccer facilities.

“What we’re looking for is big, busy buildings,” he says. “I would say that 98% of our buildings are multi-purpose, in terms of they might have two or more hockey pads. A lot of them have pools, gyms and indoor soccer fields.”

Boasting coast-to-coast coverage of a combined 65 million annual visitors and 900 million available impressions, Wilson says that some larger locations, like The Co-operators Centre in Regina and Nepean Sportsplex in Ottawa, sport as many as four SDN digital OOH screens.

Wilson says SDN’s competitive edge is its large format screens, which allows for full-screen ads and a loop content ratio of 50%, as well as the ability to place split-screen ads on scheduling screens in arenas.