Asellus sells your ad inside the home team's live game. Nobody who owns the game has claimed it.
Local car dealers, HVAC companies and law firms are buying guaranteed spots inside named teams' live streams. Every break in every game has an owner. We keep asking who said yes.
Leagues, teams and networks that reported a relationship with Asellus
0
Written authorizations shown to us
0
Georgia's rights holder, asked if it authorized the Bulldogs pitch
No
Score as of Oct. 20, 2026. Sources: Asellus emails of Sept. 9 and 10; ADOTAT calls in September; Georgia Bulldogs Sports Marketing, on the record.
"Reserved inventory to ensure delivery." Cox Media Group's Bulldogs proposalAsked if it authorized the pitch, Georgia's rights holder: "No."Asellus answered zero of six follow-up questionsThe NFL, NBA, NHL, teams, Fox and NBCUniversal reported no relationship with AsellusAsellus's proof of delivery: a client seeing his own spot"Reserved inventory to ensure delivery." Cox Media Group's Bulldogs proposalAsked if it authorized the pitch, Georgia's rights holder: "No."Asellus answered zero of six follow-up questionsThe NFL, NBA, NHL, teams, Fox and NBCUniversal reported no relationship with AsellusAsellus's proof of delivery: a client seeing his own spot
The play
Diagram the play. Find the owner.
Here's the route the inventory takes, as people in the market described it to ADOTAT. Watch for the one player who never touches the ball: the rights holder who owns the game.
ADOTAT hasn't traced specific impressions through each company in this chain. None of the companies in the middle is accused of knowing anything about authorization. A label on a bid request travels downstream, and everyone after the first hop inherits it.
Film room
Four plays worth rewinding
ProofFrom part one, Sept. 23
Asellus calls a client's sighting proof. Cable men used to get affidavits.
Asked how an advertiser knows it got what it paid for, Asellus founder Carl Francese wrote that the best confirmation is "when a client views their spot running live, within the ordered game, in the local market ordered, and for the specific team requested."
Keep reading
Picture the HVAC owner at the sports bar, late in the third. There's his logo. His foreman slaps him on the back. He renews. That moment is real. It also proves one impression, on one screen, at one time.
Francese came up in local cable spot sales: Cablevision, NCC Media, Enterprise Cable Networks. In that world nobody relied on a sighting. Systems issued affidavits of performance, a log of every spot with date, time and network, stapled to the invoice. A political buyer didn't take the candidate's word that he saw his ad. He got the affidavit.
The old trade had paper for a thirty-second spot on one cable zone. The new product promises a named team's live game in a named market, and offers the sighting instead.
Cox pitched "reserved" Bulldogs ads. Georgia's rights holder said "No."
Cox Media Group pitched an Atlanta advertiser a "College Football Team Pack" offering "inclusion in live regular season football games for the Georgia Bulldogs," with the Georgia "G" on it and a promise of "reserved inventory to ensure delivery." Price: $76 CPM.
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Asked whether Georgia Bulldogs Sports Marketing, Learfield or JMI authorized Cox Media Group, Asellus or Addressable Media to sell placements marketed as inside Bulldogs games, or to use UGA marks, Ryan Gribble answered on the record: "No."
Who controls in-game advertising? "Sits entirely with the network." In 2024 that meant ESPN and ABC. ESPN hasn't answered officially.
Two separate permissions, two buildings. Access to the break runs through the network. The logo runs through the school. One doesn't answer the other.
Gribble's last line: "I would be interested in seeing the package you received." The people who manage Georgia's commercial rights had never seen a Georgia-branded proposal.
Asellus cites third-party verification. Verifiers don't check who owns the game.
Asellus told ADOTAT that 90%+ of its campaigns include at least one third-party verification service, naming Comscore. The question it was asked was about authorization, whether the owner of the game said yes.
Keep reading
Verification companies are good at telling you whether a human saw your ad on a real screen next to acceptable content. They aren't in the business of telling you whether the league signed off. Brand studies measure whether people remember your ad, not where it came from.
So ADOTAT narrowed it to six questions: which vendor attests to publisher identity, which Comscore product, whether a written authorization exists without naming anyone, programmatic or direct, what proves guaranteed volume, and whether anyone has complained. "A simple no is a complete answer."
Francese's reply answered none of them and asked one back: "Are you working from a specific advertiser or a competitor suggestion?"
"Yes, written authorization exists, and I can't tell you with whom" is a complete sentence. Asellus hasn't said it.
Fine printFrom the Sept. 23 and Oct. 7 pieces
Asellus promises "last look" at the top 30 CTV networks. The leagues didn't claim it.
Asellus's website advertises "direct integration to 'last look' inventory with the top 30 CTV networks" and "the most sought out live streaming sports and events on CTV at the most aggressive price."
Keep reading
"Last look" is a privilege a publisher grants, a final shot at inventory before anyone else. It's not something you find lying in the street. Francese's LinkedIn describes it differently, as "direct insertion into premium live sports" delivered with an unnamed "technology partner."
In September, ADOTAT called the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, individual teams, Fox and NBCUniversal. None reported any relationship with Asellus.
One more line from the website: Asellus "started over 20 years ago." New York State records show it was incorporated January 27, 2009. Maybe that counts Francese's earlier career. It's a one-sentence answer.
How it works
Every break has a lease. Here's the building.
Think of a live game as a building with a fixed number of rooms. The network rents most of them to national sponsors. A few small rooms go to local sellers. On streaming the building grows more doors, and you can win a room at auction, but you can't guarantee one there.
Rented by the networkLocal availsA different product: a seat in the stadium versus a billboard outside it
"Reserved inventory to ensure delivery" describes a reservation, not an auction. A reservation leaves a trail: a seller account, a supply path, a booking with someone who holds the room. Two public ledgers, ads.txt and sellers.json, show whether everyone in the chain called themselves what they are. That's the trail we're asking to see.
Play-by-play
How the drive has gone
May 7
The smoke goes public
Front Office Sports reports that live sports streaming ads are thick with questions about team-specific guarantees. The piece names no aggregator.
Sept. 4
Three questions to Asellus
Authorization, how "last look" works, and whether anyone has complained. On the record or background, his choice. A week to answer.
Sept. 9
Asellus answers the question it wasn't asked
NDAs, proprietary capabilities, 90%+ third-party verification, and the client sighting. Nothing on complaints. Six narrower questions go back the same day.
Sept. 10
Zero for six
Francese replies that Asellus has shared what its agreements allow, then asks whether ADOTAT is working from an advertiser or a competitor.
September
Calling the owners
The NFL, NBA, NHL, individual teams, Fox and NBCUniversal. None reports a relationship with Asellus.
Sept. 23
Part one runs
"Asellus Sells Ads Inside a Named Team's Live Game. It Won't Say Who Authorized Them."
Sept. 24
The Field Kit
Seven questions for your rep before you sign a sports package.
Sept. 29
Georgia: "No."
Georgia Bulldogs Sports Marketing says it did not authorize Cox Media Group, Asellus or Addressable Media to sell in-game Bulldogs placements or use UGA marks.
Oct. 7
The Bulldogs report
Cox pitched "reserved" Bulldogs game ads. Georgia's rights holder says it gave no authorization.
Oct. 8
After the invoice
Six checks for advertisers who already bought, plus a five-line letter for when the numbers don't add up.
Next
Still on the field
Questions are out to networks, platforms, resellers and holding companies. Every answer, and every decline, runs in the next installment.
The playbook
Six plays that end this story
Every item here lives in a legitimate seller's filing cabinet. If you bought a team pack, ask your rep for these. If you sell one, this is what we're asking you for.
1
The authorization
Confirmation, to an advertiser or an independent reviewer, that whoever controlled the break authorized the in-game sale. Black out the price and the names. Show it exists.
2
The path
The deal ID, seller account and supply path for one guaranteed campaign, so a buyer can check it in his own logs.
3
The ledgers
The ads.txt and sellers.json entries for the accounts used, showing everyone was labeled as what they are.
4
Somebody else's report
One delivery report from a company other than the one that sold the ad.
5
Glass or break
If any ads ran on the glass instead of in the break, say so, and show the advertiser was told.
6
The guarantee
What it covered. Specific games? A season total? Replacement inventory if a game came up short? And what the buyer was told about substitutions.
Dealers, agencies, local sales managers who started to wonder, and anyone who sent us a tip and wants to back it with documents. Write from an address you can actually check, and we'll move to Signal from there. Documents beat adjectives. Every time.
pesach@adotat.com
This site summarizes ADOTAT's published reporting: Carl Francese's Sept. 9 and 10 emails, Asellus's public marketing, Georgia Bulldogs Sports Marketing's on-record answers, September calls to leagues, teams and networks, Front Office Sports' May 7 reporting, and IAB Tech Lab standards. ADOTAT has not seen an executed Asellus contract, deal ID or delivery report, has not traced impressions through the chain described, and makes no finding that the impressions don't exist or that any law was broken. Every company named was contacted before publication and none reviewed this material in advance. ADOTAT has no financial relationship with any company named here; employees of several subscribe. Pesach Lattin ran the ad network Vizi in the late 2000s and helped build one of the first digital rep firms in the 1990s. No paid placement in editorial.