In a study, Hive and Elevate Sport Ventures have reported that the National College Athletic Association’s (NCAA) men’s and women’s March Madness basketball tournaments generated over US$410 million for brands exposed within telecasts.

Through the 134 games, brands earned more than 187 hours of cumulative brand exposure, with official NCAA sponsors, equipment providers, and uniform sponsors receiving 94% of in-game exposure in the men’s tournament and 76% of in-game exposure for the women’s tournament.

Additionally, NCAA corporate champion brands, AT&T, Coca-Cola and Capital One, along with Nike and Spalding earned 50% of total screen time throughout both tournaments.

Capital One received the most exposure for corporate champions, Buick received the most for corporate partners, while Nike led uniform sponsors, Spalding led equipment providers and State Farm led all other brands.

Commenting on brand exposure, Hive president of enterprise AI, Dan Calpin, said: “Most digital signage in arenas is allocated to brands for a fixed duration.”

“However, brands get the most value from the subset of that exposure which is visible to the larger audience watching the event at home, which can often vary across brands based on gameplay.

“The ability to measure this exposure in near real-time, especially during a season or multi-week event like March Madness, creates an opportunity to better align exposure with where brands get value,” he said.

NCAA sponsors engaged viewers beyond ads and in-game signage, with data from data, measurement, and analytics software company, EDO, saying top sponsors experienced higher search engagement rates in the minutes adjacent to their on-screen exposure.

Commenting on engagement rates, EDO head of client solutions, Laura Grover, said: “NCAA programming typically performs exceptionally well in EDO data.”

“In 2021, for example, NCAA March Madness programming comprised four of the top ten most engaging sports programs across all of TV.

“Further, the Men’s Championship Game was the second strongest sports environment for driving ad engagement in 2021, trailing only Super Bowl LV.

“This year’s games provided a similarly engaging environment, and Coca-Cola experienced considerable success pairing the NCAA environment with the launch of Coca-Cola with Coffee.

“That campaign has proven to be Coca-Cola’s strongest of the past year,” she said.

The study comes after platform, Opendorse, who helps student-athletes attain endorsements, released their ‘name, image, likeness’ (NIL) compensation findings.