• by March 20, 2006

Last Friday, a CBS Digital Media exec dropped a not-so-subtle reminder that CBS SportsLine launched its biggest live streamed product "in the history of the Internet." Well, this here Minute is skeptical of anyone who says "biggest ever" or "first," as there have been at least a few other blockbuster streaming events in recent months--Live 8 comes to mind for starters.

Still, he had a point. Here we are in the middle of NCAA March Madness, with college hoops fans among the best consumer audiences a marketer could hope for--loyal, passionate, educated, and affluent. As of Sunday night, CBS said its NCAA March Madness on Demand served more than 14 million streams of live video from the 2006 NCAA® Division I Men's Basketball Championship. It logged more than 4 million visitors during the first four days of the tournament.

CBS Digital Media claims that the over 14 million video streams and 4 million visitors surpass the total number of streams served and visits recorded for any previous live event in Internet history. Are there any challengers out there? CBS cites NASA's online video coverage of the launch and landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery, which logged more than 2.6 million visitors. We'd like to hear from you if you have data on streaming events that exceed 14 million. In addition to the metrics offered above, CBS provided a few other data points on the NCAA March Madness package:

A total of 1.15 million users have registered for March Madness on Demand.

A total of 530,000 fans registered for MMOD on Thursday, March 16.

Approximately 30,000 international users registered for MMOD.

MMOD had 150,000 people in the waiting room on Thursday March 16 just after the first games started.

CBS scored nicely with sponsorship of the extravaganza from the likes of Courtyard by Marriott, Dell, Lowe's, Pontiac, and State Farm. According to some of the blog reports, fans seemed pleased with the picture and sound quality on the Web, and toggling between games was easy. However, fans say you had to stay connected to the game or after 30 minutes a pop-up warning appeared to warn you would be disconnected.

CBS geared up to enable nearly 268,000 people to view games simultaneously. Haven't had a chance to catch the streams? You can still catch the action through March 24 for free.