Maybe it was the increase in the use of smartphones and tablets or maybe it was fans using March Madness on Demand as a compliment to the TV coverage or people using it to watch the games outright, but there was huge spike in the numbers of views and visits to MMOD this year. Not just a 10 or 20% jump, but a massive 63% in total visits. That is just staggering. I’m quite in awe of that. Let’s take a look at the press release from Turner Sports.
2011 NCAA® March Madness® on Demand Sees 63% Increase in Total Visits and 17% Increase in Video Consumption across Multiple Platforms for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship
Online and mobile consumption complements strong growth of television ratings on four networks: TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV
The 2011 NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) presented by Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA delivered a 63% increase in total visits YOY across all platforms for the entire NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship it was announced today. Additionally, the tournament garnered 13.7 million total hours of streaming video consumed through MMOD online and iPad and iPhone apps, a 17% increase over 2010.
In total, there were 52 million visits across the MMOD broadband and mobile platforms from Selection Sunday on March 13 through the conclusion of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship on April 4.
“The new partnership between Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA allowed us to provide fans with more options online and on television than ever before to view this year’s exciting NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament,” said Matthew Hong, senior vice president and general manager of sports operations for Turner Sports. “The tremendous success and cross-platform growth of NCAA March Madness on Demand this year, which featured higher resolution video, social media interactivity, TV companion functionality and free video access across multiple platforms, illustrates how online and mobile viewing complemented the television viewing experience of this year’s new tournament format.”
Other NCAA.com and MMOD highlights for the 12 tournament game days from March 15 – April 4 include:
- An average of 1.9 million daily unique visitors on broadband, a 16% increase from last year.
- 683K average daily unique users on the mobile apps.
- 30%of all streams for MMOD from Selection Sunday through the Championship were from iPad and iPhone apps.
- An average of 67.5 minutes per daily unique visitor was spent streaming MMOD on broadband.
- An average of 16.6 minutes per daily unique visitor was spent streaming MMOD on mobile apps.
- NCAA.com/MMOD broadband averaged 3.8 million daily unique visitors and the app averaged 922K from March 17 – March 18.
NCAA March Madness on Demand provided live streaming video, plus interactive TV companion functionality, of every game of the new 68-team tournament as they were broadcast for the first time this year nationally in their entirety on four networks: TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV. Free to users across all platforms, including on broadband, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch (over Wi-fi and 3G), March Madness on Demand offered new features for fans to view the games including improved live viewing with richer quality and larger format streams, a personalized channel lineup feature, live stats and social media interaction.
CBS Sports’ and Turner Sports’ exclusive live coverage of the 2011 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV is the most-watched tournament since 2005, averaging 10.2 million total viewers, +7% from 9.5 million total viewers for CBS Sports’ 2010 coverage and is the highest viewer average for the NCAA Tournament since 10.6 million in 2005.
The overall tournament average, including the FIRST FOUR®, is a 6.4/14 rating/share, +7% from a 6.0/13 for 2010, according to Nielsen Fast Nationals. The 6.4/14 is the highest average rating for the NCAA Tournament since a 6.9/15 in 2005.
2010 supplied by CBS: DW (online traffic), Akamai (streams and duration), iTunes Connect (app downloads)
2011 data: Omniture (online traffic, streams and duration), Conviva (mobile streams and duration), Bango (mobile traffic), iTunes Connect (app downloads)
Source: Nielsen Media Research, based on Fast National Data, Live +SD data stream. 2011 NCAA Tournament Dates, include First Four telecast gross. Dates of NCAA Tournament: 2011 3/15/11 – 3/27/11 vs 2010 3/18/10 – 3/29/10. 2011 averages based on weighted average of 4 telecast gross across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.
More stuff coming up.
