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.