Despite ongoing issues with both sports television ratings in the United States and the administration of the ongoing college basketball season amid the Covid-19 pandemic, officials for CBS Sports and Turner Sports said they are generating record ad sales for the upcoming NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Sportsbusiness.com reports the two networks, which share coverage of the prominent event widely known as March Madness, said they are “virtually sold out” of ad inventory for the tournament, with the exception of a handful of units being held in reserve for one Final Four contest and the national championship game, both of which will be on CBS. And pricing that increased at an undisclosed percentage has, as a result, produced record ad sales revenue for the event.
“Financially, we’ve never been in better shape,” said Jon Diament, Turner Sports chief revenue officer. “This is the best year we’ve had.”
More than 100 total advertisers have signed on for the tournament, with about 90 per cent of them coming back from prior 2020 plans that were scuttled when the entire event last year was canceled in the early days of the pandemic.
That lack of a tournament last year has created additional pent-up demand, network executives said, even as college basketball ratings thus far in the season have shown softness and some key brand names in the sport such as Duke and Michigan State are not at certain to be selected for the tournament. The pandemic has also led to dozens of college basketball games being canceled or rescheduled.
Most of the tournament’s linear advertisers will carry a digital presence as well, taking advantage of both the continued growth of the March Madness Live streaming product as well as the heightened presence of the newly rebranded Paramount+, which will also stream CBS’ tournament games.
The entire event this year will be staged within the state of Indiana and carries a series of contingency plans in the event of further virus-related issues.
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