How a series rights-holder's sponsor exposure was measured from the broadcast recording, checked against it, and valued with every assumption in plain sight.
A dirt-track series rights-holder asked PitSponsor to measure one sponsor's exposure in one streamed race broadcast: the sponsor's race car, its trackside signage and the pace truck. PitSponsor scanned the full 4-hour 19-minute recording, credited 34 minutes 27 seconds of on-screen time across four placements, sample-checked 240 moments against the recording, and estimated media value at stated audience assumptions. Here is what was measured, what it means, and what it does not prove.
The question the audit was built to answer
A series rights-holder wanted to show one of its sponsors, a national automotive brand, what that sponsor's assets had delivered on screen during one race broadcast. The rights-holder named three placements it cared about: the sponsor's race car (one driver's car), the sponsor's trackside signage, and the sponsor-branded pace truck. Across the whole broadcast, how long was this sponsor actually visible, on which placements, how clearly, and what is comparable exposure worth at a stated audience?
The broadcast that was examined
One streamed race broadcast from a national dirt-track series, one Saturday night in October 2026. Full recording: 4 hours 19 minutes 10 seconds, 466,501 frames, from the series' own broadcast service. Scope: one sponsor, counting the brand and its racing sub-brand as one. PitSponsor added a fourth placement the rights-holder had not asked for: the broadcaster's own on-screen graphics that carried the sponsor's name.
What PitSponsor measured, and how
Exposure means time the sponsor's logo was visible on screen under a written set of rules: Methodology v4.4 and Asset Rules v1.1. Frames were sampled across the whole recording (93,300 frames examined); gaps of 5 seconds or less between sightings are credited as continuous; logos smaller than 0.07% of the picture are not credited. Each appearance gets a 0–100 Visibility Score and a tier (Standard 1.0, Hero 1.16, Incidental 0.5). Estimated media value = (estimated viewers ÷ 1,000) × tier-weighted seconds × $0.50, PitSponsor's planning rate, not a rate card and not a cost-per-thousand figure from any market; the audience is an assumption, shown at five sizes. A PitSponsor reviewer checked 240 random credited moments against the recording. The 11,083 detection rows were sealed with a cryptographic hash.
What the audit found
- Credited on-screen time (each moment counted once): 34 min 27 s (2,067.8 s), about 13% of the broadcast.
- Visibility Score 87 (Elite band). Exposure by tier: Standard 81% (1,678.5 s), Incidental 19% (389.3 s), Hero 0%.
- Estimated on-screen media value: $46,829 at 50,000 assumed viewers. At other assumed audiences: 25,000: $23,414; 75,000: $70,243; 100,000: $93,658; 200,000: $187,315.
- By placement (times overlap because placements share the screen; dollars are shares of the one total at 50,000 assumed viewers): broadcaster's on-screen graphics 1,013.5 s, 4 appearances, longest 697.2 s, score 88, $24,628 (53%); trackside signage 705.5 s, 51 appearances, longest 98.2 s, score 86, $15,866 (34%); the race car 299.2 s, 47 appearances, longest 53.5 s, score 87, $4,198 (9%); the pace truck 120.7 s, 38 appearances, longest 32.7 s, score 83, $1,937 (4%); not assignable to one placement 15.7 s, $200.
- How the placement times add up to the total: 2,138.9 s across the four rows, less 86.7 s when two or more were on screen together (counted once), plus 15.7 s of cuts under 5 seconds from one placement to another, less 0.1 s rounding, equals 2,067.8 s.
- The sample check passed with no errors in all 240 moments.
Limits of the analysis
Media value is modeled at assumed audience sizes; actual viewership was not measured. Estimated media value is advertising exposure equivalency: what comparable exposure might cost to buy. It is not sales, conversion, brand lift or return on the sponsorship. The sample check is PitSponsor's own review, not an independent audit; a separate review of 56 random frames found 5 with a sponsor placement on screen that had not been credited, so the total is more likely an under-count than an over-count.
The next useful step
If you sponsor a car, a series or a track, or you sell sponsorship and want to show what it delivered, the useful first step is one broadcast and one sponsor: the same scope as this audit. Tell us the broadcast, the sponsor and the placements. We will reply with scope and pricing. No viewership numbers needed.