With pipelines flooded with live sports content, the streaming advertising industry's infrastructure may not be able to cope.

Over the next two years, more and more major sports broadcasts will be moved to streaming. Amazon’s NBA package for Prime Video and Netflix’s Christmas Day NFL games are just two of the most notable examples.

And streaming-exclusive broadcasts are just part of the picture. Disney’s direct-to-consumer ESPN product is expected to launch next fall, while joint streaming venture Venu Sports will bring linear sports coverage to cord-cutters later this year (barring antitrust action).

There’s no doubt that advertisers are eager to grab the new inventory that’s about to become available. Live sports coverage, with its typically large and highly engaged audiences, represents valuable advertising real estate, and one advertising executive told the Hollywood Reporter ahead of this year’s upfronts that live sports could account for more than 40% of upfront ad spend by 2024.