(by Frookie)
The 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is living up to its seeding as a watershed event in the evolution of sports on handheld devices.
March Madness 2011 is the first of a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal among Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA to broadcast all 67-games of the tournament.
The deal included aggressive marketing of March Madness on Demand (MMOD). An online portal for the Men’s basketball games, MMOD is designed to be both an effective companion to television viewing and an alternative when television viewing is inconvenient.
MMOD growth is explosive. On the first day of this year’s tourney, there was a 22 percent increase in total visitors (4.1 million online and 774,000 on apps) across multiple handheld platforms, according to a press release. That’s over and above a 30 percent increase in 2010. In 2011, MMOD is easily outpacing television ratings, which are up 19 percent so far this year.
The success of MMOD is critical to the success of Turner Sports and CBS Sports. Unlike television broadcast, MMOD allows for direct marketing opportunities, as well as brand evangelism opportunities on social networks. If Turner Sports and CBS Sports are to succeed in their $10.8 billion collegiate basketball gambit, MMOD must be the driver.
So-called “second-screen viewing” could be driving consumer use of mobile devices to watch NCAA Men’s Collegiate Basketball. For the first time in the 73-year history of March Madness, every game is being televised in full on one of four television platforms – CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. By extending viewing opportunities on traditional television, CBS and Turner encourage consumers to be their own programmers, switching among networks whenever they want to see a particular game. In turn, people appear to be using mobile devices as a second-screen supplement to watch games just tipping off, check statistics and participate in social networking commentary, among other MMOD features.
The big winners in the MMOD phenomenon appear to be Coke Zero and Subway, which are two of the major advertisers concentrating significant marketing dollars to MMOD direct-to-consumer campaigns.
Incidental tracking data supports evidence that MMOD is a hit. The MMOD application for iPad, iPhone and iPad Touch over wi-fi and 3g rose to No. 1 in Apple’s App store in the first week of the NCAA games, according to a Fast Company report.
