• by Wayne Friedman , March 15, 2016

NCAA's “March Madness” tournament -- which will generate well over a billion dollars in advertising revenue for TV networks -- will cause more than a billion dollars in lost business productivity.

The nearly month-long college men’s basketball tournament will mean $1.3 billion in lost business productivity among business executives, who will watch the games while at the office, according to a study from out-of-home media company Captivate.

At the same time, analysts say TV advertising spending on CBS and Turner networks, which will air the “March Madness” event, could rise to nearly $1.3 billion this year.

Kantar Media said that last year the ‘March Madness’ event produced $1.19 billion in TV advertising spending -- with the average price for the 2015 NCAA Championship game growing 5% versus the previous year to $1.56 million.

The biggest advertisers of a year ago included: General Motors at $93.3 million; AT&T with $75.2 million; Capital One at $44.8 million; Berkshire Hathaway with $41.4 million; and Coca-Cola at $40.9 million.

The Captivate study says over half of business executives -- 52% -- will watch the game while at the office; with 21% saying they will “secretly” watch it, not letting their superiors know. Another 12% say they will take long lunch breaks to watch the games.

Some 32% of those surveyed -- 784 people -- believe the March Madness games can be a boost for “office morale.” Nearly 40% will bet on the games; 34% saying they’ll spend $10 betting on their office bracket; 30% will spend $20.

Elevator and lobby media display company, Captivate, owned by Generation Partners and Gannett, used third-party research companies -- including Gfk, MRI, Nielsen, Yankelovich, MarketTools -- and a panel of upscale business executives for its Office Pulse study.