NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game Scores $153M In Ad Revs

Amid strong TV ratings, the NCAA College Basketball Championship game pulled in an estimated $153.4 million in advertising revenue on CBS -- part of some $1.1 billion that was spent for the entire three-week tournament.

Sixty-one different brands appeared in 72 commercials in some 108 national TV airings on CBS for NCAA national championship game, according to iSpot.tv, the TV commercial, movie trailer and show promotion tracking company. Average pricing for a 30-second commercial in the game was roughly $1.5 million.

TV viewership of the national championship game on CBS -- where Duke beat Wisconsin -- rose 33% from a year ago to average Nielsen 28.3 million viewers -- the best results in nearly two decades.

For the entire three-week tournament, iSpot estimates $1.07 billion was spent -- 210 brands and 437 TV commercials in some 5,460 national TV airings. When including re-airing on games on CBS Sports Network, this total goes to $1.1 billion.

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Last year, Kantar Media estimated the NCAA Tournament pulled $1.13 billion in TV ad revenue, with a total of 89 unique advertisers.

This year, the biggest TV spender for the tournament was AT&T, which iSpot estimates came to $61.5 million. Buick was next at $50.3 million with Capital One at $37.5 million.

Next comes CBS, which ran TV promos for its content during the event, estimated to have a value of $29.5 million.

Southwest Airlines followed CBS -- at $28.5 million. Then Infiniti, $24.6 million; Allstate, $22.4 million; Coca-Cola, $21.9 million; Geico, $20.6 million; and BMW, $20.4 million.

The average TV viewership -- across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV -- for the entire tournament was up 8% to 11.3 million total average viewership. CBS and Turner are in the fourth year of a 14-year deal with the NCAA to air the tournament.

1 comment about " NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game Scores $153M In Ad Revs".
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  1. meghan gifford from asu, April 8, 2015 at 11:26 p.m.

    The companies who invested their time and money into making advertisements to display during March Maddness are absolute geniuses. It's a well-known fact that advertising is one of the biggest reasons people end up buying products, but to put these advertisements out to the public in one of the most watched, if not the most watched, sporting events in March is a huge deal. There is no doubt in my mind that these products are selling better than they were in February due to the sole fact that people want to buy these products becuase of those advertisements. Advertising is a wonderful thing and it's exactly why these companies are going to report much higher revenues going forward.

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