March Madness

There’s nothing wrong with obsessing over the Big Dance. But maybe don’t stream games at work, the Defense Department tells employees, warning the department’s network could be overwhelmed.

Games on CBS and Turner Sports will feature breathtaking finishes and surprising winners as the field is culled to 32 teams over the next 48 hours. Get your bracket ready.

The tournament generated a record $1.24 billion in national ads in 2016, up 5% and a new record. Meanwhile, audiences for the final rounds have shrunk since moving to cable.

Kantar Media says “March Madness” generated $1.24 billion in national TV advertising spending in 2016 airings on CBS and Turner networks (TBS, TNT and truTV), up 4.7% versus 2015. Kantar says these gains are in line with 2% to 5% annual gains — keeping pace with annual TV rights fees increases.

Two months ago, broadcasters were warned about the risks of publishing ads or engaging in promotional activities that refer to the Super Bowl without approval of the NFL. Now, with the NCAA Basketball Tournament about to begin, broadcasters, publishers and other businesses need to be equally wary about potential claims arising from their use terms and logos associated with the tournament, including March Madness,® The Big Dance,® Final Four® or Elite Eight®, each of which is a federally registered trademark. And the NCAA aggressively polices the use of its trademarks.

New research from Kantar Media shows that the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball tournament is now second only to the NFL playoffs as the most lucrative post-season playoff franchise.

When the new NCAA March Madness Live app goes live today, it will be available on more platforms than ever before. But only Apple TV users will get a coveted feature: the ability to watch two games at once.

The finals will air on cable for the first time, two years after the Final Four migrated. Buyers worry about ratings declines. Pricing is flat to last season.

The annual March Madness college basketball tournament is giving advertisers multiple shots at their desired audience. Car companies advertising during the NCAA basketball tournament’s Sweet 16 and Elite 8 rounds, for instance, received an average “brand lift” of 59.7%, according to a survey from video ad firm Extreme Reach, which polled about 200,000 respondents on how likely they were to purchase a particular brand’s automobile.

The Kentucky men’s college basketball team nearly lost a game for the first time this season on Saturday night, which made TBS a big winner. The Wildcats’ final-seconds win over Notre Dame to secure a spot in the Final Four became the highest-rated college basketball game in history on cable and the most-watched program ever on TBS, according to Nielsen. The contest averaged an 8.4 household rating on TBS, peaking with an 11.1 from 10:45 p.m. to 11 p.m.

March Madness is drawing record numbers, both on TV and online. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament posted its highest-rated opening Saturday ever, and overall ratings are the highest they’ve ever been to this point in the tourney. Saturday’s games averaged a 7.4 household rating, according to Nielsen metered-market ratings, airing on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.

It’s that time of the year again. The time when Internet speeds begin to slow and productivity dips. Yup, it’s March Madness time. Millions of people will tune in online and over-the-air to watch the best college basketball teams in the nation go head-to-head. There’s a total of 67 games, which will be broadcast across CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV starting today. The championship game is scheduled for Monday, April 6, on CBS. Here’s how you can tune in on your devices:

Ad revenue is up and viewership should be as well, with Kentucky aiming to become the first undefeated champion in decades. Either way, Turner and CBS win.

We are in March, which means that the minds of many turn to basketball, specifically “March Madness” as the NCAA hosts its annual championship tournament to crown college basketball’s national champion. And many broadcasters want to take advantage of the tournament to promote their stations or the products of their sponsors. Because of this inclination, we post this warning each year — so be careful about using “March Madness” in promotions and advertisements, as these uses could bring trouble.

Thursday night’s top two shows — Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy — lead ABC to win the ratings race. Ratings for CBS’s March Madness coverage were down by more than 30% from last year.

A Kantar Media study shows that broadcasters make more money in national ad sales during the college basketball tournament than any other professional sport’s post-season games. Last year’s tournament totaled $1.15 billion of ad spending from 65 games, which trumped the 11-game NFL playoff total by over $50 million and the NBA post-season by $223 million.

The blog NewscastStudio.com is currently hosting the second round of its “Set Madness” tournament that lets readers decide which set has the best design.

March Madness is off to a historic start. On Sunday a 15 seed, Florida Gulf Coast, made it to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in tournament history. And last Thursday, CBS and the Turner networks drew the tourney’s best opening-day viewership in 22 years. The first night of second-round coverage, the most recent numbers available from Nielsen, averaged 8.1 million total viewers, the best start since 1991, when the tourney expanded to four telecast windows.

According to insiders, all 67 games of the 2013 NCAA Men’s Div. I Basketball Tournament are virtually sold out across CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV. All told, more than 95% of the available in-game inventory has been claimed by marketers, making this year’s dance even tighter than the 2012 tourney.

Ad dollars for March Madness topped the $1 billion mark for the first time last year, as games aired on CBS and three Turner networks. That was nearly a 40% increase over 2011, the first year CBS shared the games with the Time Warner unit.

March Madness is over, but new data from Millennial Media and the Interactive Advertising Bureau shows just how much of a cross-platform phenomenon the NCAA tournament has become.

Saturday’s national semifinals pitting four powerhouse programs earned a 9.0 overnight rating and a 17 share, an increase of 1% over last season’s Final Four, which featured upstarts Butler and VCU along with Kentucky and eventual national champion Connecticut.

Ad sales for Web streaming of March Madness has grown each year that games have been streamed online, nearly doubling the $32 million sold for the 2009 tournament.

Last year’s strong ratings for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament were no fluke. Ratings are up again this year, the second since the tourney expanded from CBS to include coverage on three cable networks, proving that last year’s ratings uptick wasn’t simply a reflection of the expanded coverage. Through the first three nights of the tourney, Thursday through Saturday, viewership is up 3% over last year, to 8 million, according to Nielsen, across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.

With the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament starting today, here’s a look at March Madness by the numbers, from advertising to TV viewers to how much productivity it costs our national workplace. Happy bracketing.

With the tourney tipping off Thursday, here’s a media buyer’s primer on March Madness, including how much ad revenue it generates, how much money it costs employers, and how many people watched last year.

CBS and Turner Broadcasting will start charging some college basketball fans $4 next month to stream the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament across multiple devices — computer, mobile and tablet. However, fans who can prove they pay for cable or satellite TV will be able to stream every game of the tournament for free on their computers.

Parsing the performance of the NCAA tournament this year, with three networks carrying games in addition to CBS, will be complicated. Ratings for CBS, the sole carrier of the games for years, were down versus 2010. But measured collectively, the four networks carrying March Madness saw big gains over last year. In fact, they delivered the biggest start to the tournament in 20 years. CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV averaged a collective 5.7 household rating for more than 12 hours of game coverage yesterday, up 24% from a 4.6 last year, when only CBS had the games.

In a open letter to CBS CEO Les Moonves and NCAA President Mark Emmert, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) asked them to move the Connecticut Huskies NCAA tourney game Thursday night against the Wofford Terriers from TNT to CBS affiliate WFSB Hartford. According to Courtney, 150,000 Connecticut households would be unable to watch the game on cable.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is already the second-most-lucrative sporting event on television each year, and this year it stands to gain yet more ad revenue. Jon Swallen, SVP of research at Kantar Media, talks about sold-out inventory, whether ad revenue will rise and why CBS took on a partner.

Infiniti plans to keep its name — and especially its new M hybrid sedan — in front of basketball fans for the next few weeks as a sponsor of NCAA Men’s Basketball Division I championship. Under a multi-network advertising deal with NCAA, CBS Sports and Turner Sports, Infiniti will run a total of 170 TV spots of up to 60 seconds each over the next four weeks of March Madness basketball playoffs on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.

Powerade is gearing up for the biggest marketing program in its history. For the first time the brand will be front and center during March Madness, leveraging its designation as the “Official Sports Drink of the NCAA” with a robust marketing campaign dubbed “Game Science” and sideline presence throughout college basketball’s marquee tournament. It’s all part of broader deal Powerade inked last fall to have its products on the sidelines for all 88 NCAA championships.

Next week, CBS and Turner Sports will unveil a new way to watch the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, using two companies, two production teams, two sales forces, and four networks to air every game in the 68-team tournament. Although a plan may be in place, the playbook is by no means carved in stone, as even the top executives at CBS and Turner are not sure how quickly viewers will grasp the new broadcast schedule.

Commercial time during the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament is virtually gone, despite the complications introduced by showing games on four channels instead of one. March Madness, as the NCAA tournament is more commonly known, is nearly sold out of TV and digital inventory on CBS and Turner’s TNT, TBS and TruTV. That’s the earliest the event has sold so much inventory in recent memory.

CBS Sports and Turner Sports have teamed up with automaker Infiniti in a pact that extends well beyond the margins of March Madness. Having signed on as an official NCAA corporate partner, Nissan’s Infiniti marque will run a multiplatform campaign on CBS, CBSSports.com and NCAA.com throughout the regular season. Once the the newly expanded 68-team tourney tips off on Turner’s truTV, Infiniti will begin running its spots in each March Madness broadcast.