As CBS and Turner began their deal to carry NCAA tournament games and jointly operate digital distribution, the first day of the tournament's round of 64 had a 22% increase in traffic for online and mobile consumption by one measure.
Part of that could be promotion by both companies and more entry points on the Web, such as SI.com.
On Thursday, "March Madness on Demand (MMOD)" saw a 22% jump to 7.6 million total visits for both online and mobile app viewing for the 16 games combined. MMOD allows a viewer to toggle between games and each one in the tournament is available. There were 3.3 million total hours of viewing of the live streaming Thursday.
Advertisers include Capital One and Subway. Now that Turner is part of the NCAA coverage, its SI.com site joins NCAA.com and CBSSportsline.com as gateways to the broadband coverage.
On Thursday, there were also 4.1 million unique visitors.
Turner and CBS are beginning a 14-year deal to cover the tournament together. The MMOD app is available for free and can be employed on devices such as the iPad.
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