A sporting chance: Arena Media Networks doubled its size in a year but has plenty of venues left to sign up

STANDING IN LINE for a hot dog at a baseball game or a beer at a concert may never be the same since Art Williams and two partners wentinto business five years ago, creating what has rapidly grown to become the largest digital video advertising network in stadiums and arenas across the country. Williams' company, Arena Media Networks, has hundreds of high-definition digital displays televising live programming and ads near concession stands and in other high-traffic areas of46 major league sports venues. AMN reaches more than 120 million people annually who attend concerts, sports events and other entertainment events, adding up to impressions approaching billions, Williams says.

Williams, AMN's CEO and chairman, has worked in alternative advertising his entire career. He founded one of the first Internet consulting firms in New York, Spiral Media, in 1993, and became executive vp, operations for Agency.com when Spiral Media merged into the Onmicominteractive marketing company in 1998. Williams later became executive vp and COO of Omnicom's digital marketing agency Organic before founding AMN in 2003 with Tom Kiernan and David Roberts.

"I thought this was an opportunity to be involved in the next new media," Williams says of his foray into digital placed-based media.

Williams and his partners decided to venture into sports and entertainment venues in large part because of the passion of sports fans, who tend to be an affluent, well-educated audience with good disposable income.

"Sports is a passion point for millions of people throughout the country," says Williams, a Long Island native and lifelong New York Mets fan. "Any way in which you can be effective in communicating with people who are passionate about something is the desire of any advertiser."

AMN has built an extensive roster of local and national advertisers, including Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, American Express, Geico, Verizon Wireless, Yahoo, Nokia, Warner Records, Shell, Home Depot, Spalding and MasterCard. Ads are mixed in with a variety of sports, entertainment, weather and financial programming.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Williams sees considerable room for continued growth, what with AMN in less than half of the roughly 100 major league sports venues in the U.S. AMN would like to eventually expand to minor league and college sports venues, as well as other entertainment sites, such as summer concert facilities and theaters. The New York-based company also is rolling out a new platform to insert advertising on all game-feed TVs in stadiums and arenas.

"We still think our growth potential is quite significant at this point," says Williams, who adds that AMN has grown 100 percent year over year and expects that to be the case again from 2008 to '09.