With fans consuming 13.7 million hours of Web and mobile video in 2011, the men’s college basketball tournament coverage was a “marquee Web video ad buy,” as Adweek describes, and “one of the most popular TV-on-the-web offerings every year” according to Ad Age. Its broadcasters know that, and are gambling in 2012 that they can monetize it better.
CBS and Time Warner on Wednesday announced that cable nonsubscribers can watch the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament digitally, for a one-time fee of $3.99. Subscribers can watch it digitally as well, but will have to authenticate themselves.
Turner Sports, CBS Sports and the NCAA have rebranded digital delivery of the tournament. It is now NCAA March Madness Live or MML, formerly “March Madness on Demand” or MMOD. MML will this year provide college basketball fans with “more opportunities to watch every minute of every game" of the 2012 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, Turner and CBS promise. Produced by Turner Sports Interactive, NCAA MML Live is a suite of live products presented across multiple screens, including online; as apps for iPad, iPhone and iTouch; and for the first time, on Android phones. NCAA MML will also be available over Wi-fi and 3G for $3.99 to nonsubscribers of cable TV, beginning on March 7; as well as on cable channels TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV. Coverage begins with the NCAA Basketball Selection Show on Sunday, March 11, continuing through the National Championship Game from New Orleans on April 2.
CBS in 2010 partnered with Time Warner to share the cost of the games, and in 2011 began sharing coverage with other broadcasters, specifically TBS, TNT and TruTV, ensuring that every one of 67 games would be broadcast. The broadcasts were supported by ad revenues and cable subscriberships. But in 2011, CBS and Time Warner reported that free digital viewing garnered an average 2.4 million daily unique visitors on broadband and 702,000 daily unique users of a mobile app.
Time will tell how this will affect digital viewership and advertisers. Adweek predicts that CBS and Turner “risk alienating an audience…conditioned to receive every game whenever they want.” That, plus the confusing authentication procedure, means it is likely that MML will lose some of the 3.8 million daily unique visitors MML enjoyed in 2012. But it is arguable if those non-paying viewers are worth keeping, for the sheer prestige of record-setting digital numbers. As Turner Sports VP and General Manager told Ad Age, “The models around digital media and the models around sports media are continuing to evolve,” which requires the broadcasters to evolve as well.
