Brands bet on sustained enthusiasm for women’s basketball ahead of March Madness

According to Nielsen NBA audiences on ABC and ESPN have largely flatlined this season, down 1% year-on-year, while TNT’s are 14% lower — apparently a casualty of dwindling cable usage in the U.S — collectively, NBA audiences are down 5%. But the NCAA’s spring tournament typically attracts significant numbers of casual viewers over its three-week run, thanks in part to thousands of office betting pools around the tournament that draws their attention.

“What pulls it apart from other sporting events is so many non-sports enthusiasts come in and view it, especially in the early rounds,” said Matt Larson, vp of media and connection strategy at media agency Collective Measures.

Considered second only to the Super Bowl on the U.S. annual televised sporting calendar, last year’s tournament drew an average of 9.07 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. The men’s (on TBS and TNT) and women’s finales (on ABC and ESPN) garnered 14.8 million and 18.9 million viewers respectively according to Nielsen, an 89% rise for the latter. It was the first time more viewers had chosen to watch the women’s game.

Advertising beyond Caitlin Clark

While each of the marketers who spoke with Digiday for this story declined to share their campaign budgets, March Madness ad prices, while not at Super Bowl heights, carry a significant premium. In 2024, a 30-second ad unit for the tournament’s final game cost $500,000, according to AdAge.

Longtime NCAA sponsor Powerade has increased its campaign budget for this year’s tournament to adapt to that milestone.

According to CMO Tom Gargiulo, it’s increasing the budget set aside for TV to take advantage of increased interest in the women’s tournament, and running a spot starring college basketballers Alex Karaban, Saniya Rivers and Caleb Love, and LSU Tigers player Flau’Jae Johnson. Gargiulo declined to share the cost of that spot.

“Last year, we decided to take the leap and invested some money into the women’s tournament, and saw a lot of really great return. This year we’re doubling down on that,” he told Digiday. Powerade’s channel mix will include linear and CTV, plus paid spend on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, as well as out-of-home and retail activity. Gargiulo declined to provide precise budget details, but said the media spend would stretch into the “tens of millions of dollars.”

The Coca-Cola-owned brand isn’t the only advertiser looking to take advantage of more interest in the women’s side of the slate. It’s also not the only advertiser running a spot starring Flau’Jae Johnson.

During the tournament, Experian will be running its own ad starring the LSU Tigers guard on CBS, TNT, TBS and TruTV, as well as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X.

“Part of the reason we wanted to leverage our relationship with [Johnson] is the growing interest in the women’s game,” said Kevin Everhart, chief growth officer for consumer services at Experian. He said the brand was set to spend more on ads running in coverage of the women’s tournament, something he suggested would translate to better campaign performance.

“We [can] reach more consumers at a relatively high frequency by increasing the budget slightly, but balancing the properties more across that spend,” said Everhart.

For insurer State Farm (a ubiquitous presence across nearly all major sports events on TV), March Madness provides a launchpad for a major nationwide campaign. Underlining the tournament’s “second only to the Super Bowl” status, it’s an ad that would originally have launched during the Big Game had its execs not backed out in response to the California wildfires.

“We created it thinking that we would run it in the Super Bowl, and we decided to pull out of the Super Bowl,” said Alyson Griffin, head of marketing at State Farm. 

Instead, its Batman-themed ad featuring Jason Bateman, SZA and YouTuber Kai Cenat will make use of 30-second and 60-second linear TV spots, as well as pause ads and interactive ads on CTV, starting March 15. Teaser spots featuring spokesman “Jake from State Farm” have already begun running on several networks. 

Griffin said March Madness had its own advantages as a kick-off point for the campaign, which is set to last for six months. “[The Super Bowl] is a really big moment, but it’s also very crowded,” she said. “It is very difficult to stand out” there. 

By contrast, she added, March Madness is “culturally relevant… it has the broadest reach, and in the three week period, gets pretty close to the eyeballs of the Super Bowl.”

Women’s sports window of opportunity

As well as a chance to capitalize on the growing popularity of women’s basketball, the tournament’s a chance for brands to expand their use of CTV and streaming ads. 

Advertisers adopting streaming as a means of reaching sports viewers (and throwing incremental budget at it) has been one of the standout media stories of recent years. Paramount expects its Paramount+ streaming platform, which is among those carrying March Madness coverage, to reach profitability this year, per its annual report (Paramount+ ad revenue was $574 million, a 9% annual rise).

The gradual increase in inventory, especially the portion available to buy programmatically, has helped open up sports for advertisers like Collective Measures client Andersen Windows.

Following a small experimental campaign bought via PMP in 2024, it’s running a nationwide campaign during March Madness. The advertiser has split its TV budget down the middle, assigning 50% to linear, and the remainder to CTV and streaming platforms Max, DirecTV Stream and Warner Bros. Discovery’s March Madness live streaming app. It’s also using paid search and paid social, including Facebook and Instagram.

“The old playbook might have been to do a big TV buy and then surround it with digital,” said Collective Measures’ Larson. “We’re flipping that script.”