NCAA March Madness Live, the digital home for the NCAA’s Men’s Basketball Tournament managed by Turner Sports, is adding features to the platform, which will stream all 67 games starting March 17. 

One new feature is the Starting Lineup Challenge, a fantasy sports type of game that lets fans pick a lineup of five teams before the tournament starts. Instead of being out when their teams lose, players will be able to buy and sell teams as games are played. Winning teams get points and players who hold onto their teams get bonuses. The game was created with SharpLink Gaming.

March Madness Live will also let viewers watch two games at once on some connected devices including Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV and Xbox One. 

Also: March Madness Sold Out With Record Ad Revenue for CBS, Turner

The app will remind viewers who are playing the Capital One NCAA March Madness Men’s Bracket Challenge to watch games and root for teams in their brackets.

Matchup Analysis is returning to March Madness Live. The feature lets fans personalize their brackets based on more than 20 stats as part of Bracket IQ presented by Ivestco QQQ.

Also returning are Fast Break presented by AT&T 5G and Nissan, a live whip around review of games enhanced with analytics from Second Spectrum, as well as The Catch Up presented by AT&T 5G, with game recaps.

In addition, Game Center returns as the platform’s central hub, with highlights and condensed games presented by AT&T 5G.

In addition to AT&T, Capital One and Nissan, Corporate Champion sponsors of March Madness Live include Coca Cola and Buick.  ■

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is inspiring March Madness among sponsors and generating record advertising revenue for CBS and Turner Sports.

“We’re virtually sold out,” said John Bogusz, executive VP, sports sales and marketing, CBS Network Sales, speaking on a call with reporters Wednesday. 

Bogusz said that for the big ticket items, all of the commercials in one of the Final Four games are already spoken for, and there are only a couple of units left in the other Final Four games and the championship game.

Also Read: CBS’s Sean McManus on March Madness: I’m Not Worrying About Ratings Being

A handful of spots are being reserved in case the trend to lower ratings seen in college basketball so far this year, as well as in the Super Bowl and the NBA All Star game also impacts the tournament, he said.

But ad sales at higher prices than last year have produced record revenue, said Jon Diament, executive VP, chief revenue officer, Turner Sports.

During the 2019 tournament, CBS and Turner Sports generated an estimated $655.1 million in ad revenue, according to Standard Media Index.

Diament said several new corporate sponsors signed up, helping to boost the revenue total. The new partner level sponsors are Aflac, Invesco and Great Clips.

Invesco and Great Clips actually signed up for last year’s tournament, which was one of the first events canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aflac is brand new this year.

The Champion-level sponsors for the tournament are AT&T, Capital One and Coca-Cola. The partner level sponsors are Aflac, Buffalo Wild Wings, Buick, GEICO, Great Clips, Invesco, Lowe’s, Marriott, Nabisco, Nissan, Pizza Hut, Reese’s, Uber Eats, Unilever, and Wendy’s.

Those are generally multi-year deals, which means the event is nearly half sold out when CBS and Turner sales people hit the street each year. Those sponsorships include integrated media, marketing rights, activations and hospitality.

The big categories driving increased spending this year are insurance, auto, telecom, financial services and restaurants.

After the pandemic, both quick service and casual dining restaurants are advertising again, Diament said.

A couple of movie studios are also advertising plus streaming services, including Paramount Plus from CBS parent company ViacomCBS, which was a big Super Bowl advertiser, and HBO Max from Turner parent AT&T.

While ratings have been challenged for linear networks, spending on sports has continued to be good, said Bogusz. Diament added that Turner has been seeing record-setting revenue for its NBA season.

During the games, viewers will see new, custom contextual ads, many featuring the networks’ sports talent; in-game branding during marquee moments and commentary, made-for-TV moments and amplified social moments.

In all, 100 different advertisers will be involved in the tournament and about 90% of the advertisers buying linear ads will also be on digital platforms including NCAA March Madness Live.  

“We’re starting to see more of a trend of folks coming in and buying their inventory earlier because they’re concerned about  getting blocked out of the prime positions,” Diament added.

One thing that will make this year’s tournament different is smaller out-of-home viewership with fewer people watching in bars and in offices. For the past few years, out-of-home viewing has been included in the audience numbers on which ad sales are based.

“We expect the Nielsen number to reflect strong viewership at home,” Diament said. “There won’t be a need for a boss button.”

NCAA March Madness Live, one of the first popular sports streaming sites, will debut a new design and features as the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament returns after being cancelled last year by the COVID-19 pandemic.

March Madness Live this year is being presented by AT&T 5G, Coca-Cola and Capital, and Turner Sports, which manages it, said the new design will emphasize live video viewing, be easier to navigate and integrate seamlessly into connected and mobile devices to enable interactive experiences.

Read Also: NCAA 'March Madness' Tournament to Take Place Without Live Audience

One new feature is The Catch up, presented by AT&T 5G, which will give fans a recap of key moments from live games.

Game Center this year will be featured on all connected devices and include Condensed Games. It will also have a new tab to access interactive items, including polls, quizzes and alerts.

Fast Break, presented by AT&T 5G and Nissan returns.

This year the Capital One NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge has been optimized to integrate with live game coverage, reminding viewers which outcomes they predicted and his they affect their standings.

Matchup Analysis will allow fans to choose from 20 stats to personalize how they pick their brackets. Bracket IQ is sponsored by Invesco QQQ.

On mobile, Coca-Cola, Capital One and Buick will sponsor the NCAA March Madness Live App for iOS; AT&T 5G, Capital One and Nissan will sponsor the Android app. On connected streaming devices: Capital One and AT&T 5G will sponsor the Roku app; AT&T 5G will serve as a sponsor for the Apple TV app; Capital One and AT&T 5G will sponsor the Amazon Fire TV app; Invesco will serve as sponsor for Google TV; and AT&T 5G, Coca-Cola and Powerade will sponsor the Xbox app.

Between them, Turner Sports and CBS Sports will provide live coverage of all 67 games during the tournament across TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV, plus NCAA March Madness Live.

The tournament tips off March 18.

Comcast has added some enhancements to the Sports app on its X1 platform for set-top boxes as March Madness gets underway.

Among the enhancements that tie into the men’s college basketball tournament, the app features a special tile that displays the top-seeded teams in each region, a schedule of dates for each round, and access to previous results.

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X1 subs can also use the app to track a regional bracket or zoom out for a look at the full tournament.

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Those customers can also pull up the bracket by uttering, “Show me the bracket,” or the fuller March Madness experience on the platform by saying “NCAA Tournament” into the X1 voice remote. Comcast has also set up other voice commands that can display “knowledge cards” with team stats and comparisons if they say, for example, “Georgia State basketball.”

RELATED: Machine Learning Holds Key to Scaling Up Comcast’s Voice Remote (subscription required)

Comcast is also letting X1 subs restart all tournament games airing on TBS, TNT and truTV that are in progress via its Instant on Demand system. 

Meanwhile, Sling TV, Dish’s OTT TV service, is giving March Madness fans a free taste.

Consumers who are new to the service can watch three hours of games for free during the first round today (March 15) and tomorrow (March 16) on Google Chrome browsers.

RELATED: Sling TV Polishes Player for Google Chrome

Typically, the first weekend in May is considered a big one for television sports viewers as the Kentucky Derby battles with the second round of the National Basketball Association Playoffs, the settling in of a new baseball season and a major pay-per-view boxing match — and all of that will, indeed, take place one month from now.

But for cable sports networks, the first full week of April is almost just as action-packed, as industry executives hope several major events will have viewers kicking back in front of their big-screen TV to watch cable-exclusive events.

Tonight (April 4), TBS will air the Villanova-North Carolina NCAA men’s basketball tournament championship game — the denoument of March Madness — marking the first time the title contest will not be televised by a broadcast network. (It had been a staple for co-rightsholder CBS since 1982.)

While TBS, TNT and truTV have been airing many of the early-round tournament events for years — and last year TBS set a ratings record with its telecast of the semifinal Final Four round — it’s still a feather in cable’s cap to have both the College Football Playoff championship, currently on ESPN, and now the college basketball finals on TBS.

As for the potential loss of viewers in moving the game from a broadcast channel to a network that viewers need a subscription to watch, Turner president David Levy said that, in the viewer’s mind, there’s no difference between cable and broadcast — sports fans will find the content they want to watch on whatever channel or platform it’s on.

Meanwhile, ESPN last night (April 3) threw out the first pitch of the new baseball season with its New York Mets- Kansas City Royals telecast — the first ever Opening Day rematch of the previous World Series participants. The telecast was one of three Opening Day games for the 24-hour sports programmer, which will join various regional sports networks around the country in televising a dozen opening day games on Monday, even as RSN carriage battles involving the New York Yankees (YES Network vs. Comcast) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (over SportsNet LA), continue to make headlines.

Finally on Saturday (April 9), HBO Sports will distribute the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley Jr. pay-per-view fight, which many ringside observers believe will be the last of Pacquiao’s storied career. Prior to Pacquiao’s fight last May against Floyd Mayweather, which earned a record-breaking $400 million in PPV revenue, the multi-division champion from the Phillippines had generated a whopping $741 million in PPV revenue over his career, according to Forbes — the second-most ever, behind Mayweather.

If indeed this is Pacquiao’s last time stepping into the PPV ring, he will leave some mighty big shoes to fill. Middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez will continue his climb to assume the pound-for-pound PPV championship mantle held by both Pacquiao and the now-retired Mayweather when he steps into the ring May 7 against Amir Kahn.

But that’s a month from now. This week is cable’s big sports play.

Last week’s tipoff of March Madness brought on a mad rush of new apps and services from pay TV providers, ad-tech vendors and programmers that are tailored for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

On the streaming front, NCAA March Madness Live, an app for the tourney developed in partnership by the NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS Sports, is available across what they say is a record 12 platforms.

Those lending support this year include the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Roku players and Roku TVs, Amazon Fire tablets, iOS and Android mobile devices, Windows handsets, Web browsers, and even the Apple Watch. Additionally, viewers can access all games broadcast on CBS “with no registration required” on desktops as well as smartphones and tablets. Live streams will also be offered on digital platforms from TBS, TNT, truTV and CBS, as well as via participating TV provider websites and apps.

The NCAA March Madness Live app for the Apple TV offers a split-screen feature that lets users stream two live games at the same time.

Dish Network is literally doubling that with last week’s debut of “Sports Bar Mode,” a feature for its new 4K-capable Hopper 3 DVR that divides the TV screen into quadrants, with each displaying a different live TV program. That feature, also called “multiview” and offered on any Hopper 3 that’s connected to a 4K or HD set, decodes four streams, stitches them together and displays them simultaneously. The feature takes advantage of the tuner-rich Hopper 3, which sports 16 of them.

Comcast is also focusing on the big screen with the debut of a basketball “Extras” for its X1 Sports app that syncs up stats with live programming and relies on tech from OneTwoSee, the Philadelphia-based startup that Comcast acquired earlier this month.

The interactive app provides in-game, team-by-team stats such as steals, rebounds and foul counts, as well as a view of the updated tournament bracket. Post-game, the app feeds a recap of the matchup, including by-quarter scores and the “Xfinity Player of the Game.”

For the tourney’s Final Four round, the app will also let users pull up full-team rosters and detailed individual player stats, including shooting percentages by court location.

The tourney also created an opening for media data specialist 4C to take the wraps off Sports Sync, a platform that enables brands and other partners to deliver ads on social networks including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in concert with a specific live sports moment, such as a slam dunk or a game-changing three-point shot.

Several brands have signed on for Sports Sync for March Madness, 4C said, but the company wasn’t at liberty yet to name them. 4C also has built a version of its platform that triggers digital ads around political TV spots, as well as shifts in the weather.

Not all ad inventory is created equal, according to Aaron Goldman, 4C’s chief marketing officer. 4C’s approach is about delivering an ad message “when attentions are heightened,” he said.

— Jeff Baumgartner

‘Dirty Charades’ Behind the Scenes of ‘Skin Wars'

 Body-painting competition Skin Wars is GSN’s top original series, and behind the scenes it often takes hours for the painters to create their masterpieces on their nearly naked human canvases.

Host Rebecca Romijn and sejudge RuPaul Charles lamented during the network’s March 8 upfront presentation that episodes could take as long as 14 hours to tape as they literally and painstakingly watched paint dry.

They played games to pass the time, such as “Dirty Charades.” It’s like the traditional pantomime guessing game, but as Charles succinctly described, “It was just dirty.”

Michael Levitt said it was often di_ cult to begin shooting after several rounds of charades, because the host couldn’t stop laughing at the risqué gamesmanship.

Romijn quipped that the game’s content and gestures probably wouldn’t be suitable for air. “I don’t think you’re going to see our game on GSN anytime soon.”

— R. Thomas Umstead