• Media Life, Monday, March 12, 2007 2:09 PM

While ratings for the NCAA men's basketball tournament--set to tip off Thursday--are apt to be flat to down if recent trends hold, it will still be an ad bonanza for CBS. Spending on the "March Madness" telecast has increased by more than 60 percent since 2001, and is expected to pass $500 million for the first time this year. That makes it the most lucrative post-season televised sporting event--ahead of NFL football, baseball and basketball--and it accounts for three-fourths of all spending on college basketball over a season. Rising demand meets limited supply in the tournament--the supply being young, affluent college-educated men who watch the games and the demand from marketers wanting to reach them. "When you tie into this kind of event, and a lot of these have a thematic element tied to March Madness, you have to build it around the event," says Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at ad tracker TNS. "Some of the revenue escalation ties back to an increased usage of event marketing by top-tier TV ad sponsors." CBS will show 32 games through the April 2 final, where 17.5 million people tuned in last year. Overall, the total audience for championship games has fallen 27 percent between 2001 and 2006, part of a longer slide going back to 1979 when 35 million people saw the title game.

Read the whole story at Media Life »