Category: Sports, Media, & Marketing

At a Glance:

• Hive analyzed the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight to assess logo distribution by brand prominence, earned media exposure, and viewership trends across games.
• Buffalo Wild Wings capitalized on its overtime commercial spots, with the highest average household reach (5.7% of households) on its placements.
• AT&T’s logo placements showed consistency, maintaining its spot for the most screen time with a majority of logos scoring above average on Brand Prominence.*
• The highest average household viewership occurred during the Sweet 16 where Duke vs. Virginia Tech had a 7.6% average household reach and a peak of 9.2%. Second place went to Duke vs. Michigan State in the Elite Eight with a 6.8% average household reach and a peak of 10.5% – the highest of any game.
• Hive assessed how the point gap in the last minutes of the games drove increased viewership and found a strong correlation, with the closest games seeing up to a 200% bump in viewership in the last minutes.

Texas Tech, Virginia, Auburn, and Michigan State fought tough battles and earned themselves spots in the Final Four. Over the course of four days, six teams upset their opponents, three games went into overtime, and two teams found out that they would make their Final Four debuts. Hive used its best-in-class computer vision models in conjunction with viewership data (powered by 605, an independent TV data and analytics company) from more than 10M households to analyze brand logo distribution and sources of viewership fluctuation.

Brand winners

Official NCAA Corporate Partner Buffalo Wild Wings snagged the most effective commercial spots in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, earning the top household reach per commercial airing. Their overtime-specific commercial was created and set to air only during overtime games, which paid off big time in these two rounds. With Purdue vs. Tennessee in the Sweet 16 and Purdue vs. Virginia and Auburn vs. Kentucky in the Elite Eight all going into overtime, the brand’s ad slots earned them a number of extra opportunities to get in front of fans with relevant content. Google reached the second highest percentage of household reach per commercial airing followed by Apple.

The Hive Logo Model also scanned every second of the 12 games this week for logo placements and earned media. AT&T’s digital overlays and halftime sponsorship earned the most airtime again this week. Their logos were not only frequently on screen, but they were also quite prominent with a majority of logos scoring more than 20 on Brand Prominence.* Apparel and gear sponsors Nike, Under Armour, and Spalding all received lots of screen time but their logos were low prominence, usually appearing in the action on jerseys, shoes, or hoops. Courtside sponsors Lowes, Buick, Infiniti, and Coca Cola were all consistently mid-scoring with a few very strong placements when the camera caught the logo in the background of a close-up.

Top games

The Sweet 16 and Elite Eight once again proved that the Zion effect is real. The top two games with the highest average viewership over the course of the two rounds went to both Duke games. In the Sweet 16, fans held their breath as the Blue Devils they narrowly escaped Virginia Tech 75-73. The game itself raked in the largest audience size in the tournament yet. However, the Zion show came to an end after Michigan State shocked Duke in the Elite Eight. The final score read 68-67, a bracket-busting win for Michigan State.

No. 3 seed Purdue put up a fight in this year’s tournament with two overtime games. Figure 4 shows a graph of their battle against No. 2 seed Tennessee in the Sweet 16 overlaid with the Florida State vs. Gonzaga game that started a few minutes before. The CBS game retained steady viewership as it approached halftime while the TBS game started just in time for the other game’s viewers to switch over. They flipped back to CBS during Purdue vs. Tennessee’s halftime show, but they did not return when it ended. This may be attributed to the fact that barely five minutes into the second half, Purdue took an 18-point lead over Tennessee. However, Tennessee began to make a comeback and viewership spiked to 7% as they forced OT. Purdue prevailed, securing their spot in the Elite Eight for the first time since 2000.

Interestingly, viewers in this round overwhelmingly followed the action on both channels. The loss in viewership during halftime on the CBS show was almost perfectly mirrored with a bump in viewership on the TBS game. When the CBS game returned, most switched back until Tennessee started to come back from their double-digit deficit, stealing a majority of the viewership as the CBS game tailed off in the last few minutes.

Purdue’s Elite Eight performance drew an even bigger crowd than the last round. An average of 6% of American households watched them play 1-seed Virginia, arguably one of the most exciting games in the entire tournament. Within the last two minutes of regulation, Carson Edwards gave Purdue the lead, impressing America with his tenth three-pointer of the game. With only six seconds remaining, all of the stars were aligned as UVA’s Ty Jerome perfectly missed his second free throw, commencing the play that allowed Mamadi Diakite to tie up the game and force OT. Ultimately, Virginia edged out Purdue 80-75 preventing what could have been their first ever Final Four appearance.

Two teams, however, anticipated their Final Four debuts. After defeating Kansas and North Carolina, 5-seed Auburn beat 2-seed Kentucky in the Elite Eight proving that the Tigers can hang with the blue bloods.Texas Tech will also be showing up to the Final Four for the first time in program history after upsetting No. 1 Gonzaga. This game had the highest average household viewership on TBS during these two rounds.

Given the last minute shifts in viewership during the Purdue vs. Tennessee nail-biter, Hive decided to analyze how point gap in the last 10 minutes of the game drives viewership. As would be expected, increases in game viewership in the last ten minutes was strongly driven by how close the scores were. As the average point differential near the end of the game decreased, the viewership grew substantially with the closest games seeing up to a 250% bump. Auburn vs. North Carolina was an exception to this, seeing viewership rise 100% during the last ten minutes despite a double-digit point gap. This was likely due to its interest relative to the competing game, LSU vs. Michigan, which had a similarly wide point gap but in favor of the higher seeded team. Auburn’s upset coupled with Chuma Okeke’s unfortunate injury increased attention to the game despite Auburn’s substantial lead.

Conclusion

Heading into the Final Four, all but one 1-seed team have packed their bags and gone home. If your bracket wasn’t busted before, it most likely is now. We’ve almost reached the end of the road, but there is still more madness to come. Next week, we’ll find out who will cut the nets in Minneapolis and which team and brand will be crowned NCAA Champions.

Kevin Guo is Co-founder and CEO of Hive, a full-stack deep learning company based in San Francisco building an AI-powered dashboard for media analytics. For inquiries, please contact him at kevin.guo@thehive.ai.

Viewership data was powered by 605, an independent TV data and analytics company.

*A Brand Prominence Score is defined as the combination of a logo’s clarity, size, and location on-screen, in addition to the presence of other brands or objects on screen.

At a Glance:

• March Madness is the most anticipated tournament of the year for college basketball fans, bracket-holders, and advertisers alike.
• Hive analyzed the First and Second Rounds to assess viewership trends across games, earned media exposure, and sponsorship winners.
• The highest average viewership occurred during the Round of 32 where Auburn vs. Kansas had a 0.8% average household reach. However, First Round Cinderella story UC Irvine’s Second Round game against Oregon achieved the highest peak viewership, reaching 1.1% of households.
• Although UC Irvine’s fairy tale ending wasn’t meant to be, the potential of another upset in the Second Round bumped their viewership 108% from the last round. The victor of that game, Oregon, was the only double-digit seed to survive through to the Sweet 16.
• AT&T optimized their sponsorship spot and earned the most screen time while maintaining a high Brand Prominence Score.
• Progressive had the most effective airings with over 2% average reach for their spots in total but GMC and AT&T generated the most viewership with over 100 airings and an average household reach of just under 2%.

March Madness is a live TV experience like no other. Millions of brackets are filled out every year, and unlike other one-time sporting events such as Super Bowl Sunday, March Madness is an extended series of games with an all-day TV schedule. This results in more data points and in turn, more opportunities to assess patterns and trends. The elongated showcase gives marketers some madness of their own – TV advertisers and sponsors receive a unique chance to hold their audience’s attention and craft a story.

In the First and Second Rounds, Hive used its best-in-class computer vision models in conjunction with viewership data (powered by 605, an independent TV data and analytics company) from more than 10M households to analyze which brands made an appearance, which games viewers were watching, and which advertisers optimized their NCAA sponsorship real-estate.

Brands that stole the show

Because of the diversity in viewership of the tournament, brands have the opportunity to market content to both fans and non-fans. Acquiring March Madness real-estate means unlocking millions of impressions from one of the largest audiences in the nation. Hive is able to measure earned media and sponsorship exposure by using computer vision AI to identify brand logos in content during regular programming, creating a holistic “media fingerprint.” This visual contextual meta-data is overlaid with the most robust viewership dataset available to enable brands with an unparalleled level of data on their earned media and sponsorship. Hive Media helps brands understand how a dollar of advertising spend may translate to real-life consumer purchases.

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Hive’s AI models capture every second that a brand’s logo is on screen and assign that logo a Brand Prominence Score.*

AT&T won big in the first two rounds of the tournament. As an Official NCAA Corporate Champion and halftime sponsor, it had prominent digital overlays, one of the highest brand prominences, and the most seconds on screen with almost six hours. Its earned media was equivalent to 260 30-second spots. In second place Capital One, another Corporate Champion, with 3 hours and 22 minutes followed by Nike with 3 hours and 20 minutes of screen time.

Apparel and gear sponsors such as Nike, Under Armour, and Spalding earned a significant amount of minutes on screen because they appeared on locations such as jerseys and backboards. However, as a result of their locations, the logos appeared with much less prominence.

In addition to on-site logos, Hive also tracked the top brands by commercial airings and average household reach. Progressive, Coca-Cola, State Farm and Apple all earned higher than 2% average household reach with a selective placement strategy, however GMC and AT&T were the big winners in terms of volume as each earned almost 2% average reach with significantly more airings.

Top games

Here are the most viewed games on broadcast networks.

And here are the top five cable games from each round.

In the First Round, the Florida vs. Nevada game on TNT had the highest average viewership levels on cable TV. Figure 5 shows the household reach of Florida vs. Nevada on TNT alongside that of St. Mary’s vs. Villanova on TBS, games that broadcasted at the same time. Household tune-in remained steady in the first half with dips in viewership during commercial breaks.

By halftime, Florida had secured a healthy lead and viewership dropped as viewers switched over to the TBS game. However, viewership recovered with strength during the second half as Florida began to squander a double-digit lead just as the TBS game went to halftime. Viewers were retained even as the TBS game returned, with viewership continuing to rise until Florida narrowly edged out a win over Nevada. The head to head comparison illustrates powerful correlations between viewership and excitement during live games.

March Madness always has the entire nation buzzing about Duke, a national brand with millions of people following the blue blood powerhouse. This year, fan loyalty, coupled with the intrigue of Zion Williamson, unsurprisingly earned the team one of the largest overall audiences of the first two rounds. To top it off, the Blue Devils narrowly escaped what would have been the biggest upset of the tournament with a one-point victory.

Despite CBS’s broadcast games driving the most viewership, many households switched to cable to follow the Round of 64’s most exciting underdog story, UC Irvine.

After the First Round, it seemed as if Cinderella had moved to sunny California as UC Irvine ran away with its first tournament victory in NCAA history. Although Irvine’s average viewership level did not make the top 5 in the First Round, audience tune-in continued to soar throughout the game. After this exciting upset, UCI reached a peak of 1.1% of U.S. households in the Second Round to make it in the top five most-viewed games in the Second Round as they went head to head with Oregon. The dream of a fairy tale ending came to an end as Oregon defeated Irvine to become the only double-digit seed to secure a spot in the Sweet 16.

Conclusion

The first two rounds may be over, but we’ve only just begun the games. With no true Cinderella run this year, March Madness continues on with only the top programs. Keep an eye out to learn how this week’s bracket busters will affect audience retention in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight as Hive continues to track viewership and advertising trends.

Kevin Guo is Co-founder and CEO of Hive, a full-stack deep learning company based in San Francisco building an AI-powered dashboard for media analytics. For inquiries, please contact him at kevin.guo@thehive.ai.

Viewership data was powered by 605, an independent TV data and analytics company.

*A Brand Prominence Score is defined as the combination of a logo’s clarity, size, and location on-screen, in addition to the presence of other brands or objects on screen.