Nielsen Wire » college basketball

Market Madness: Louisville TV Homes Score Big During NCAA Tourney

Nielsen Wire — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:52:31 +0000

For fans of NCAA basketball, it has been an upset-filled March Madness. But there are no surprises in household viewing patterns among the top markets tracked by Nielsen. More than a quarter of households in the Louisville, KY, market tuned into watch the University of Kentucky defeat Cornell on March 25. The Louisville market is once again the highest-rated DMA for NCAA tournament games, averaging a 16.6 household rating through the first two rounds. While Louisville is a mid-sized market with no pro sports teams, it dominates NCAA viewership and is at the heart of a “basketball belt,” an enthusiastic cluster of markets from Raleigh to Oklahoma City that boast nine of the top 10 DMAs in tournament viewing.

Louisville also has the highest average viewership for the NCAA championship game the past 10 years. Historically, viewership hasn’t wavered despite the fact that neither the University of Louisville nor the University of Kentucky have sent teams to the championship game since 1998.

Top 10 Markets for NCAA Viewing (through March 21, 2010)
Rank	Market	2010 HH Rating
1	Louisville	16.6
2	Columbus, OH	14.6
3	Kansas City	14.5
4	Indianapolis	12.1
5	Cincinnati	11.6
6	Dayton	11.3
7	Knoxville	10.6
8	Nashville	10.3
9	Raleigh-Durham (Fayetvlle)	9.1
10	Albuquerque-Santa Fe	8.7
Source: The Nielsen Company

Further analysis shows that Louisville is more than just a college basketball town. When compared to the rest of the U.S., the “Derby City,” is roughly three times more likely to watch horse racing’s Triple Crown (including the Kentucky Derby, obviously) and is twice as likely to view the Indy 500 and Daytona 500.

Louisville, KY – Sports Viewing Index*
Event	Index
Kentucky Derby – 2009	338
NCAA – 2010	313
Belmont- 2009	292
Preakness- 2009	289
Indy 500 – 2009	217
Daytona 500- 2010	188
US Tennis Open- 2009	137
Source: The Nielsen Company *Where U.S. average is 100

NCAA Tourney Gives Sports Sites Major March Madness Bounce

Nielsen Wire — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:54:37 +0000

Monitoring traffic to three major web properties – ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, and CBS Sports – during the recent NCAA Basketball Tournament shows a spike in activity over last year (Y-O-Y) and the boost in traffic compared to the previous month (M-O-M).

Unique Audience And % Change
Site	Mar-08	Feb-09	Mar-09	M-O-M	Y-O-Y
CBS Sports	15,106,000	10,684,000	18,127,000	70%	20%
ESPN	19,844,000	17,181,000	22,938,000	34%	16%
Yahoo! Sports	19,432,000	24,953,000	25,515,000	2%	31%
Source: Nielsen Online

Additionally, video streaming on CBS Sports saw massive gains during the tournament, with nearly a 300% gain in unique users watching video. Those viewers racked up more than 380 million minutes of viewing time in March.

CBS Sports Video Viewing Usage
Statistic	Mar-09	M-O-M
Unique Viewer	3,274,000	287%
Total Streams	38,172,000	1214%
Time Spent Viewing (min)	381,882,000	4465%
Source: Nielsen Online

Nielsen’s Tom Ziangas On NCAA Tournament Advertising

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:15:28 +0000

Now that the NCAA Tournament has tipped off, senior vice president for Nielsen Sports Tom Ziangas talks about how important March Madness is to the CBS brand as well as the basketball tournament’s appeal to advertisers.

“The one thing you think about as far as the NCAA tournament is it’s synonymous with CBS,” said Ziangas. “I think advertisers understand that. That’s why you have people like Coke and AT&T – and even GM is actually coming back to the tournament when they pulled out of the Super Bowl. Having that cache as far as that association of the tournament to the network and bringing in that great male 18+ demographic is something that very few advertisers see, and that’s why they jump on board with the NCAA tournament.”

Watch the video for more from Tom Ziangas about advertising and the NCAA Tournament.