It’s Madness
It’s a big time of year for advertising. Believe it or not, ad spending during March Madness dwarfs that of the SuperBowl and the World Series. According to TNS Media Intelligence, from 2000 to 2005, more than $2.2 billion was spent on network advertising for March Madness, compared to $834 million for the Super Bowl and $880 for the World Series. The year’s Madness TV ad spending is expected to reach $500 million with a 30-second spot in the finals averaging $1.2 million.
CBS is paying an average of $562 million a year for its NCAA tournament media rights through 2014 which would be a tough payback with TV ad revenues alone, so in addition to the TV rights, CBS has all media rights to the tournament, including radio, cable, the Internet, and merchandising.
But CBS isn’t the only one trying to cash in. You can buy condensed versions of the games via iTunes for $1.99 a game or a season pass for $19.99 that gets you access all 63 games. The NCAA will actually stream some of the games not broadcast and we can all pick up those streams free at http://www.ncaasports.com/mmod.
If you’re mobile, you can keep up to date on your PDA or your cell phone. Cingular customers have their “All things NCAA MEdia Net”. Sprint customers can download video and analysis throughout the tournament.
You can’t escape it. Tonight in a quick search for March Madness on Technorati there were over 37,000 results. People are chatting online about bball. And at work. And if the numbers hold true from last year some 26 million adults will likely participate in an office pool in hopes of cashing in.
It’s everywhere. It’s madness. And it’s just begun.
Day 1–Cox Arena is evacuated when a strange odor is detected at a hot dog stand. Imagine that…a strange odor coming from a hot dog stand….
This post was written by: Kim Mickelsen
March 17th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
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