Top 10 SSPs for Sports Publishers — 2026

Which SSPs dominate the sports vertical? Ranked by the number of sports publishers listing each SSP in their ads.txt file.

● Data last updated: March 09, 2026

Methodology: SSPs ranked by unique sports publisher domains listing them in ads.txt. Data from Red Volcano's weekly crawl of 32M+ websites.

Key Takeaway

Pubmatic leads among sports publishers with 1,592 sites, followed by Rubiconproject (1,443) and Freestar (731). Out of 113,485 sports publishers tracked, the top SSP is present on 1.4% of sites.

🏆

The Rankings

RankSSPSports PublishersShare of VerticalDomain
1Pubmatic1,5921.4%pubmatic.com
2Rubiconproject1,4431.3%rubiconproject.com
3Freestar7310.6%freestar.com
4Smaato4600.4%smaato.com
5Openx4270.4%openx.com
6Sharethrough4230.4%sharethrough.com
7Infolinks3460.3%infolinks.com
8Taboola3130.3%taboola.com
9Sonobi2620.2%sonobi.com
10Thebrave1710.2%thebrave.io
📈

Visual Comparison

Pubmatic
1,592
Rubiconproject
1,443
Freestar
731
Smaato
460
Openx
427
Sharethrough
423
Infolinks
346
Taboola
313
Sonobi
262
Thebrave
171

Find Sports Publishers by SSP

Red Volcano lets you filter sports publishers by SSP, country, traffic tier, and more. Build targeted outreach lists in minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on Red Volcano's analysis, Pubmatic is the most widely adopted SSP among sports publishers, with 1,592 sports sites listing it in their ads.txt.

Red Volcano tracks 113,485 sports publisher websites globally. This ranking shows which SSPs are most popular among these publishers based on ads.txt data.

SSPs are ranked by the number of sports publisher domains (identified by content category) that list them in their ads.txt file. This indicates active monetization partnerships.

Red Volcano refreshes all ads.txt and publisher category data weekly. This ranking is updated quarterly.

📊

Get the Complete Dataset

What you see here is just a preview. Red Volcano customers get access to the full, unfiltered dataset — including:

Book a 15-minute call and we’ll walk you through the platform live.