March Madness By the numbers…

$1 Billion Total TV ad revenue for the National Collegiate Athletic Association's men's basketball tournament surpassed $1 billion for the first time in making it larger than any professional post-season sports championship, including the Super Bowl, according to Kantar Media, a media research specialist (and it will only get bigger this year on the multi-channeled CBS and TBS broadcasts).

$10.8 billion CBS and Turner spent $10.8 billion for broadcast rights to the NCAA Tournament (length of the contract is 14 years)

75 million Seventy-five million Americans participated in March Madness brackets last year according to a startup company called Fanhood

100 million RJ Bell of Pregame.com said 100 million people around the world are expected to put $12 billion on the line beginning with Thursday's games in wagers.

9.2 Quintillion That's ONE MILLION times bigger than 9 TRILLION…those are the odds of filling out a perfect tournament bracket this year.

$5 million Yahoo! Sports is again offering fans a $5 million prize to anyone who correctly picks a perfect tournament bracket (entries must be submitted on their website)

70 million Last year consumers ate nearly 70 million chicken wings during the college basketball postseason at Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants alone (they are an official NCAA sponsor, as the “Official Hangout of March Madness”)

$134 million Estimated cost to businesses in lost worker productivity throughout the tournament according to Challenger Gray & Christmas who states, "Employers should be readying themselves for the inevitable drop in productivity."

75% OfficeTeam offers a different perspective, surveying more than 1,000 managers about the effect of March Madness and found that just 8 percent of managers said it disrupted productivity. Twice as many said the effect on productivity was a positive one, while the vast majority of managers surveyed — 75 percent — said the games had no effect on productivity or morale..

1/3 More than a third of U.S. businesses take action to prepare their networks for the increased traffic during March Madness, the report said, and some 30 percent of IT professionals said they are pulling all-nighters to get ready.

$35 million One top-tier marketer reportedly spent upwards of $35 million for its NCAA sponsorship, according to an Adweek estimate, and 30-second ad slots during the men's basketball championship game on CBS could reach a record $1.4 million.

$0.00 Pizza Hut is offering college basketball fans, who sign up in advance, the chance to win a coupon for a free medium pizza with one topping ($8 value) if all four No. 1 seeds in the tournament advance to the semi-finals in Atlanta. It should be noted Pizza Hut is NOT an official NCAA sponsor…we call this AMBUSH marketing.

$3 billion Estimated amount of money spent in bets that will be made in “office pools” in the United States for this year’s tournament

6.5 million ESPN.com's national online march madness contest drew an astonishing 6.45 million entries (brackets filled out) for the NCAA men's tournament.

1.7 million Domino's sold more than 1.7 million pizzas during last year’s NCAA Men's Final Four weekend alone!

5 Five teams will wear special Adidas uniforms in the tournament featuring camouflage- patterned shorts, bright-colored jerseys and…SLEEVES?

$70 million The Final Four weekend in Atlanta is expected to draw 100,000 tourists (that number includes people from outside the city coming in for the event; it does not count city residents attending those same events) filling an estimated 10,000 hotel rooms with an overall economic impact of $70 million

Questions for Class Discussion

How do you think March Madness contributes to a drop in worker productivity in the American workplace? Do you agree with the possibility of the tournament costing employers billions? Why or why not?

What is social media? Why do you think tracking the number of consumers who follow the tournament via some form of social media is important to the NCAA? To a broadcast company like CBS or Turner Sports? What about for advertisers/marketing professionals?

What are broadcast rights? Why do you think CBS and Turner invested so much in the rights to the NCAA Tournament? Why do you think the rights to stream games online was important to CBS?

What is economic impact? Why is it an important concept when it relates to mega events like the Super Bowl, Olympic Games and NCAA Tournament? Why do you think Yahoo! Sports is offering $5 million to any fan who correctly picks a perfect bracket, especially if it doesn’t cost fans any money to submit an entry?