CBS Attracting Record Ad Prices For NCAA Basketball Coverage
CBS' ad inventory two weeks before the start of the Division I men's basketball tournament was 95% sold, with overall sales revenues up 10-15%, according to John Ourand in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The net is seeing "record-high prices across the board," as a 30-second spot during early-round primetime coverage is going for about $350,000, up nearly 10% from the '07 tournament. A 30-second ad during the Final Four and National Championship is commanding about $1.3M. Meanwhile, CBS' online March Madness on Demand (MMOD) has sold out its entire ad inventory. CBS Sports Exec/VP Sales & Marketing John Bogusz said that sales revenue for MMOD "more than doubled" from '07 and "should hit" $22-25M this year. CBS President & CEO Les Moonves last month predicted that MMOD revenue would exceed $21M. Ourand notes CBS' ad sales efforts are "helped by the NCAA's official sponsors, which are obligated to buy TV spots during the tournament as part of the deal." GM's Pontiac division, Coca-Cola and AT&T return as official NCAA corporate champions, while State Farm, The Hartford, Lowe's, Starwood Hotels and DiGiorno return as corporate partners (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/10 issue).
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McManus Says MMOD Providing
Significant Revenue To CBS |
SURF'S UP: CBS News & Sports President Sean McManus said that for the first time, online revenue "is becoming a significant part of the picture" for CBS' NCAA tournament coverage. The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER's Paul Gough reports the expected online ad revenue is a "big boost because the majority of the production costs were going to be spent by CBS anyway." The only real cost increase is "bandwidth, depending on how many people will access the site." MMOD drew 1.4 million unique viewers last year, but viewership this season should increase with CBSSports.com's new developer platform, which allows other sites to link to the online coverage. CBS also last month signed a partnership to provide social networking site Facebook with tournament brackets, and CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith noted that it is the "fastest growing application on Facebook, amassing 600,000 users" thus far. He projects that the user total "could hit 3 million by the end of the tournament." Gough notes that "kind of audience could help CBS draw sponsorships to open platforms" (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 3/12).
SECOND TO ONE: MEDIALIFE MAGAZINE's Toni Fitzgerald reported ad sales for postseason NCAA basketball are "projected to hit a record" $545M this year. The sport ranks No. 2 "among all postseason sporting events in revenue" behind the NFL playoffs, which generated $643M last year. What advertisers "like about the tourney, and what keeps them coming back at a very high annual retention rate of 81[%], is its reach." About 130 million people in '07 watched some part of the tournament, while 40.3 million "caught all or some of the championship game." Meanwhile, this marks the third year of CBS' MMOD, and while "this viewing accounts for barely 1[%] of the total audience for the games, it is growing" (MEDIALIFEMAGAZINE.com, 3/11).
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