The start of the 2017 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament has spread “March Madness” and millions of Americans are seeking to capitalize this opportunity by enthusiastically filling in the brackets. This is especially true as the championship leads to a buying frenzy on the Wall Street if we go by history.
The S&P 500 index has gained 2.2% on average over the course of the game during 10 of the past 11 tournaments. The year 2017 seems no different as the current bull market turned eight on March 9 and is extending its rally driven by Trump and Fed.
Being the biggest modern sporting event in the U.S., the championship is a money-spinner for media networks (TV, digital and social media) and advertisers, attracting billions of revenues in three weeks.
Media on Roll
The two TV media conglomerates – CBS Corporation (CBS – Free Report) and Turner Sports – continued to score the highest revenues from the event by broadcasting through four networks CBS, TNT, TBS, and truTV. Total viewership for the tournament increased 10% year over year at an average of 9.325 million over the first four days this year and has been the most-watched in 24 years, as per CBS and Turner. In particular, the eight second-round games aired on March 19 on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV averaged 11.9 million viewers compared to 8.9 million viewers last year.
As per Kantar Media, the NCAA championship generated about $1.24 billion in total advertising revenues from national television in 2016, up 4.7% from 2015. As such, the event only trails $1.318 revenue generated from the NFL playoffs.
With the rise in fans and NCAA fervor, March Madness streaming access is available on 15 different platforms for the first time this year with Live app on Amazon (AMZN – Free Report) Alexa and Xbox. Also, Turner’s video streaming service iStreamPlanet will provide infrastructure for every game also for the first time. Further, social media sites like Facebook (FB – Free Report) , Twitter (TWTR – Free Report) , and Snapchat (SNAP) are attracting fans to their respective platforms via media deals with the NCAA or Turner Sports.
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