Advertising inventory for this month’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is essentially sold out, delivering double-digit revenue increases for CBS and Turner with championship game prices exceeding $2 million for a 30-second ad.

CBS and Turner executives ascribed the success to the unpredictable drama of live sports, the widespread home markets for its participating teams, and the audiences March Madness attracts in homes and on the go, where an associated mobile-screen program has also sold out.

About 60% of the estimated $1 billion in ad revenue for the event is coming from NCAA sponsors, known as corporate champions and corporate partners, many participating through multi-year commitments. Industries such as automotive, insurance and fast food are the leading ad buyers, with COVID-dinged categories like travel and movie studios making larger commitments this year, executives said.

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Some advertisers are separately using the stage of the high-profile event to cast a spotlight on its relatively neglected Women’s March Madness, which runs its tournament concurrently and is carried by ESPN.

“The tournament for all practical purposes is sold out. We’ve had one hell of a selling season,” John Bogusz, executive VP, sports sales and marketing, at CBS Network sales, said during a media briefing on Tuesday.

“We sold it out for a lot of good reasons,” added Jon Diament, executive VP and chief revenue officer, Turner Sports. “[It shows] the power of live sports, especially programs like this that really matter to society, and I’m sure we’ll have great ratings, great demographics and great games. We also have a very strong corporate program, which is almost 20 deep, and those sponsors came back in a big way. Lastly, our digital product, which will stream all the games on screens like mobile, is also sold out.”

The tournament managed to sell its available time without participation from online sportsbooks, which have taken the professional leagues by storm but remain banished by the NCAA from associating with college sports. Emerging product categories like crypto banking, which announced its mainstream arrival through Super Bowl ads this year, “kicked the tires” on the NCAA event, Bogusz said, but ultimately declined to buy.

The NCAA’s Corporate Champions this year are Coca-Cola, Capital One and AT&T. Another 14 Corporate Partner brands, from Aflac to Wendy’s, are at work on campaigns for the event.

While the $2 million pricetag for a 30-second championship game ad is a hefty haul, it falls well short of the up to $7 million lured for Super Bowl ads this year. 

Bogusz said that uncertainty around professional baseball—which is now in the fourth month of an owner lockout that is already eating away at the regular season and its $1 billion advertising market—was not a factor in the appetite from brands for the tournament. “We wrote most of this business before there was any issue in baseball,” he said. “The Champions and Partner deals are multiyear deals, and the other inventory we've sold certainly happened before the issues with baseball [became acute].”

“Most baseball advertisers are wait-and-see,” added Diament, whose networks have a substantial broadcasting deal with MLB. “They're not spending money elsewhere such as the tournaments or our other properties like NBA, which has had a great spring. They’re keeping their fingers crossed. It’s a long season and they’ll try to kick the can down and wait it out.”

Spotlight turns to women’s tournament

Led by new campaigns for Buick and Degree, NCAA basketball advertisers are using the high-visibility tournament events to point out a disparity in recognition for women’s March Madness. (The women's tourney was prohibited from even using the Madness trademark until this year.)

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Degree is launching what it is calling the Bracket Gap Challenge, encouraging fans to fill out an NCAA Women’s March Madness Tournament bracket, watch the games, and help give the Women’s Tournament the recognition it deserves.

Buick’s campaign revisits dramatic moments from past competitions in women’s NCAA basketball, swimming and hockey, using the audio play-by-play calls only to illustrate that those heart-stopping highlights got just 10% of the media coverage their male counterparts received. The message to sports fans is that they’re missing out. Buick is working on the campaign, dubbed “See Her Greatness,” with Togethxr, a female-led media company designed to showcase women and girls as game-changers.

“Togethxr is on a mission to showcase and build business with and for the amazing diverse women changing the world through sports and activism,” said Jessica Robertson, Togethxr chief content officer. “We’re excited to work with Buick, which shares our mission to increase the visibility of women’s sports.”

The ads, which present text on a black screen, also include a QR code in the corner. A scan leads consumers to a landing page called "See Her Greatness" that includes video highlights of the plays that were only described in the commercials as well as additional information about the Togethxr partnership and its mentoring sessions for student-athletes.

“What is important to our customers is important to Buick as the brand with the largest percentage share of female buyers, and we are committed to inclusivity and equality for women,” Molly Peck, Buick and GMC marketing VP, said in a press release. “These remarkable female athletes have demonstrated the dedication, teamwork and leadership skills that can be used on and off the playing field, and we believe her greatness should be seen.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the federal statute that mandated gender equality in education and athletics. Women represent about 40% of the NCAA athletes, according to the Buick release. As a longstanding NCAA partner with a stake in the men’s Final Four, Buick will run an equal number of paid ads in the Women’s and Men’s March Madness tournaments.

As part of the collaboration with Togethxr, Buick will also have a physical presence at various NCAA events with onsite mentor huddles at the tournaments.

For this campaign, Buick will receive the first “#SeeHer in Sports Award” from SeeHer, the initiative that aims to to eliminate gender bias in media and advertising, during the Cynopsis Sports Media Awards in April.

Degree’s Bracket Gap Challenge was dreamed up by an all-female creative team, including the lead creative from Edelman who grew up playing sports, and the director of the campaign’s hero video featuring Candace Parker.