March Madness
By the numbers…
$1 Billion
Total TV ad revenue for the National Collegiate
Athletic Association's men's basketball
tournament surpassed $1 billion for the first
time in 2012 -- making it larger than any
professional post-season sports championship,
including the Super Bowl, according to Kantar
Media, a media research specialist (and it will
only get bigger this year on the multi-channeled
CBS and TBS broadcasts).
$10.8 billion
CBS and Turner spent $10.8 billion for broadcast
rights to the NCAA Tournament (length of the
contract is 14 years)
75 million
Seventy-five million Americans participated
in March Madness brackets last year according
to a startup company called Fanhood
100 million
RJ Bell of Pregame.com said 100 million people
around the world are expected to put $12
billion on the line beginning with Thursday's
games in wagers.
9.2 Quintillion
That's ONE MILLION times bigger than 9
TRILLION…those are the odds of filling out a
perfect tournament bracket this year.
$5 million
Yahoo! Sports is again offering fans a $5 million
prize to anyone who correctly picks a perfect
tournament bracket (entries must be submitted
on their website)
70 million
Last year consumers ate nearly 70 million
chicken wings during the college basketball
postseason at Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants
alone (they are an official NCAA sponsor, as the
“Official Hangout of March Madness”)
$134 million
Estimated cost to businesses in lost worker
productivity throughout the tournament
according to Challenger Gray & Christmas who
states, "Employers should be readying
themselves for the inevitable drop in
productivity."
75%
OfficeTeam offers a different perspective,
surveying more than 1,000 managers about the
effect of March Madness and found that just 8
percent of managers said it disrupted
productivity. Twice as many said the effect on
productivity was a positive one, while the vast
majority of managers surveyed — 75 percent —
said the games had no effect on productivity or
morale..
1/3
More than a third of U.S. businesses take action
to prepare their networks for the increased
traffic during March Madness, the report said,
and some 30 percent of IT professionals said
they are pulling all-nighters to get ready.
$35 million
One top-tier marketer reportedly spent
upwards of $35 million for its NCAA
sponsorship, according to an Adweek estimate,
and 30-second ad slots during the men's
basketball championship game on CBS could
reach a record $1.4 million.
$0.00
Pizza Hut is offering college basketball fans, who
sign up in advance, the chance to win a coupon
for a free medium pizza with one topping ($8
value) if all four No. 1 seeds in the tournament
advance to the semi-finals in Atlanta. It should
be noted Pizza Hut is NOT an official NCAA
sponsor…we call this AMBUSH marketing.
$3 billion
Estimated amount of money spent in bets that
will be made in “office pools” in the United
States for this year’s tournament
6.5 million
ESPN.com's national online march madness
contest drew an astonishing 6.45 million entries
(brackets filled out) for the NCAA men's
tournament.
1.7 million
Domino's sold more than 1.7 million
pizzas during last year’s NCAA Men's Final
Four weekend alone!
5
Five teams will wear special Adidas uniforms in
the tournament featuring camouflagepatterned shorts, bright-colored jerseys
and…SLEEVES?
$70 million
The Final Four weekend in Atlanta is expected
to draw 100,000 tourists (that number includes
people from outside the city coming in for the
event; it does not count city residents attending
those same events) filling an estimated 10,000
hotel rooms with an overall economic impact of
$70 million
Questions for
Class Discussion
How do you think March Madness
contributes to a drop in worker
productivity in the American workplace?
Do you agree with the possibility of the
tournament costing employers billions?
Why or why not?
What is social media?
Why do you think tracking the number of
consumers who follow the tournament
via some form of social media is
important to the NCAA? To a broadcast
company like CBS or Turner Sports? What
about for advertisers/marketing
professionals?
What are broadcast rights? Why do you
think CBS and Turner invested so much in
the rights to the NCAA Tournament?
Why do you think the rights to stream
games online was important to CBS?
What is economic impact? Why is it an
important concept when it relates to
mega events like the Super Bowl, Olympic
Games and NCAA Tournament?
Why do you think Yahoo! Sports is
offering $5 million to any fan who
correctly picks a perfect bracket,
especially if it doesn’t cost fans any
money to submit an entry?