With the 2018 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship about to tip, rights-holders Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s Turner Sports and CBS Corp.'s CBS Sports have sold out 95% of the inventory in the tournament. And that’s by design.
Now entering their eighth year of covering the 67-game tourney together, the March Madness teammates always hold some inventory in reserve to capitalize on advertisers that might be interested in putting together a late package or supplement an extant schedule.
"There is scattered inventory throughout the rest of the tournament," said John Bogusz, executive vice president for sports ad sales at CBS during a recent tournament media day in Manhattan, noting it was business as usual, relative to the sell-through level.
Jon Diament, executive vice president of Turner Sports Ad Sales said ratings will be determined by who is playing and the quality of the games. "If there are high-profile match-ups and exciting games, ratings will develop," he said, while pointing to the TeamCasts as means to make up some of the household deficit TBS faces compared to CBS’ larger reach.
Diament said the Department of Justice and the FBI’s investigation into corruption and bribery that extended to agents, players and coaches did not have any impact on deals for the 2018 tournament. "We didn’t see any impact on sales or interest," he said.
Bogusz acknowledged "we got some calls, but there were no cancellations. The NCAA responded quickly to the Corporate Champions and Corporate Partners."
Through multiyear deals, those 18 companies, headed by AT&T, Capital One and Coca-Cola as Corporate Champions, account for over 50% of the advertising expressed on the tournament both linearly and digitally. A 19th is expected to be announced this week.
Reflective of the way fans have moved from merely watching the tournament on linear TV to catching the action on their desktop computers, smartphones, tablets and connected devices, some 85% of tournament advertising packages now include schedules on both the traditional telecasts and the myriad digital offerings, according to Diament.
"We still accept just digital- or TV-copy alone. Some advertisers still like to do business that way. But we encourage clients to buy across both because that’s how fans are consuming the tournament and we recommend that buy in every window," said Diament.
The executives said automotive, quick-service restaurants, financial services, insurance and studios are among the strongest categories in the 2018 version of March Madness. Technology is also a growing player, particularly with Google Cloud, joining Intel and Indeed at NCAA Corporate Partners. Virtual programming provider YouTube TV also has a schedule.
Last year, the event generated $1.28 billion in ad sales, according to projections from Kantar Media, the data division of ad and public relations firm WPP. That represented a 3.2% increase from $1.24 billion in 2016.
This year, First Four action is set from Dayton, Ohio, on March 13 and 14, with the Final Four and championship contest on March 31 and April 2, respectively. CBS (US) and TBS (US) will televise 21 games apiece, while truTV (US) airs 13, including the First Four, and TNT (US) with 12. NCAA March Madness Live, the streaming suite of products developed by Turner Sports in conjunction with CBS and the NCAA, will present live coverage of all 67 games, across a record 16 platforms.
Bogusz dismissed the notion that having the semifinals and title tilt airing on TBS — under the contract that now runs through 2032, the cable network and CBS are home to those marquee match-ups in alternating years — represent an impediment to the sales effort. "There hasn’t been any push back whatsoever," he said.
In 2017, the top five categories were automotive ($216 million), telecom ($136 million), insurance ($132 million), restaurants ($126 million) and financial services ($123 million). Together, these groups accounted for 57% of spending on the tournament, according to Kantar Media.
