March Madness Online, Mobile Metrics Down After Shift To Paid

Turner Sports said the '12 version of March Madness Live and NCAA.com finished with a total of 51.6 million broadband and mobile visits between Selection Sunday on March 11 through last night's championship game, down 6% from last year. MML online and NCAA.com combined to average 1.1 million daily unique visitors, down 10%, and 473,000 daily uniques on mobile platforms, down 1%. The event shifted this year to an entirely new business model based around paid content and TV subscriber authentication, significantly influencing the numbers after six years as free content to consumers. The traffic decreases are a first for the digital deployment of the event.