Apparently it's not enough that sports teams play in arenas with such historical names as Network Associates Coliseum, PSINet Stadium and National Car Rental Center; stadium owners, sports teams and broadcasters increasingly feel the need to decorate the stadium walls, the field and even the players with advertisements as well.

All too often, though, those ads don't really exist. They've been digitally inserted into the television broadcast of the event and are visible only to those watching the game at home. Most of these ads are the work of Princeton Video Image in Lawrenceville, N.J., which uses a patented Live Video Insertion System (L-VIS) to place still or video images into live video broadcasts in real time so that they look as if they are part of the original scene.

Thanks to this "virtual advertising," marketers can target different portions of the audience with different types of ads–even on the exact same patch of grass. More importantly, they get their ad in front of viewers who normally visit the fridge during commercial breaks. As Kevin Harney, director of hardware development for PVI, told PhillyTech magazine, "People will zap through commercials, but they won't zap through programming."

Tom Regan, "It Quacks Like an Ad, but It's Not an Ad" (Christian Science Monitor)

Tom Regan, "Super Bowl Ads Take Virtual Leap in Canada" (Christian Science Monitor)

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