Last week, executives at The Walt Disney Co. were still riding high from this year’s Oscars telecast. Final numbers from Nielsen revealed that the show averaged 19.7 million viewers, perhaps not the ratings bonanza from a decade go, but numbers that put the awards show in elite company with only the NFL.

John Campbell, senior VP of streaming brand solutions for Disney, also notes that the “Oscars, for the first time ever, outperformed both the Grammy Awards and the Super Bowl in terms of social conversations.”

Live event tentpoles have been a staple of media and entertainment companies practically since the beginning, but in recent years companies have honed in on a new strategy: One in which live events are the tentpole, the flagship, but also a starting point to build out a wider array of advertising offerings across linear TV, streaming, digital platforms and social media.

Perhaps no company...