The marquee matchup between Gonzaga and Baylor provided a fitting end to an exciting March Madness tournament. As the two teams strived to create history (Gonzaga chasing a 32-0 perfect season and Baylor looking for the elusive national championship crown), TV networks and online sports books were creating milestones of their own.

After a break year, March Madness, the 68-team NCAA Division I Men’s College Basketball Tournament, is back with a bang. TV ratings during the early rounds of this year's tournament saw historical jumps compared to the 2019 season. Viewership for the regional semifinals was up 12% compared to the Sweet 16 round in 2019. The 2021 regional semifinals averaged 12.9 million viewers across TBS and CBS delivering the best Sweet 16 viewership since 1993, while TBS and truTV accounted for a gross viewership of 7.6 million viewers during the first four rounds, the highest recorded viewership for the tournament’s early stages ever.

And, while critics may point at double-digit declines during the Elite 8 games held during the work week, the resurgence in sports viewership among U.S. audiences should be putting a smile on the face of advertisers looking to use live sports as part of their media plans this year.

The tournament might be over, but it has left some learnings for marketers in its wake as we head into a new action-packed sports season. Here are some of the key takeaways for marketers from this year’s tournament. 

47M Americans Placed Their Bets

The American Gaming Association (AGA) predicted that more than 47 million, or 18%, Americans planned to wager on the NCAA tournament this year, with a 206% increase in the number of people looking to place the bet online. 

The dramatic growth in sport betting popularity could be attributed to the expansion of the legal market, as 73.6 million more Americans in 14 new legal jurisdictions could safely place bets on March Madness this year compared to the 2019 tournament. A 180% increase in online activity across betting domains in North Carolina (where betting was legalized March 18) compared to the 2019 season was a clear testament to this as well. 

A higher interest in online betting has further translated into increased activity around college basketball content online, with audiences across all age groups reviewing stats from the historical college basketball season. Young sports enthusiasts (18-to-34-year-olds) were 1.63 times more likely to conduct thorough online research before making a wager. The betting audiences with bigger bankrolls were also comparatively more likely to follow college basketball this year than before.

Americans aged 25-44 with a household income greater than $75k per year displayed a higher propensity (1.68 times the average) to place a bet online. A majority of these wagers were made over mobile platforms with an average user accounting for 17 sessions on gambling domains in March, a 54% month-over-month increase.

Cross-Platform Viewership Is Growing

The elevated interest in college basketball isn’t just about gambling. Ardent sports followers are also tuning in now more than ever just to catch the action live. TBS and TruTV accounted for a gross viewership of 7.6m viewers during the first four stages of the tournament, the highest recorded viewership for the stage of this tournament ever. CBS and Turner sports also reported record viewership numbers for the Sweet 16 stage, pulling in 12.9m viewers on an average (a 12% lift compared to 2019) indicating elevated levels of interest among college basketball followers.

While the scheduling of Elite 8 games on weekdays meant a smaller section of the fans were able to tune in to the live telecast of these games, increased demand (+18% week-over-week) for short match highlight reels on YouTube and online game summaries (+13% week-over-week) meant that audiences were finding new ways to stay in touch with the game even on workdays.

The top 20% of March Madness viewers consumed an average of 23-24 games through the tournament, consuming over 20 hours of live March Madness programming with a median sitting time of over 23 minutes. Casual audiences (the bottom quintile) tuned in for just a single game consuming just over 20 minutes of March Madness action. In terms of commercials viewed, the average ardent follower (in the top quintile) consumed close to 500 TV commercials during March Madness programming on average.

Linear TV continued to account for the bulk of March Madness viewership, with over 8 in 10 households engaging through traditional channels. But OTT and streaming audiences for sports programming has grown significantly - and continues to grow. Not only are more people tuning in through OTT, but OTT audiences are more engaged than traditional audiences when watching the game.

Increase in Second-Screen Opportunities

While more people are tuning in, their attention is more divided than ever. We observed a significant increase in cross-screen opportunities among March Madness audiences. Almost a quarter of March Madness viewers who tuned into the live telecast or stream were also found to be active on an alternate device. 40% of impressions generated on second screens were on the phone while almost half of second-screen opportunities were on desktops.

On average, three impression opportunities were generated on second screens during games. The most active online audiences (the top 10%) could be reached by up to 15 digital impressions per game. News, travel, and food and drinks domains were popular content categories among March Madness viewers during the game, while more people logged in for sports content post-game than before or during. Online activity was elevated on games scheduled on workdays indicating a lot of audiences tuned in to the game as they worked.

Phone usage during the game was higher among people aged 25-44 with higher relative household incomes, while older audiences were the least likely to be on another device. Those tuning in on weekdays seemed as if they were working while watching — the laptop/desktop activity was 11% higher as a percentage of all second-screen activity among households tuning in during the Elite 8 compared to the Sweet 16 and Final Four rounds. 

More Online Food Orders 

Continuing a trend from the Super Bowl, 21% more Americans looked to order food online during the tournament this year compared to the 2019 tournament. The apprehension around mobility and gathering in crowds continues to be a big driver for the elevated interest. Mid-income ($50K- $100K) millennial audiences (25-44) without any kids displayed a higher proclivity towards ordering in on game days. Activity across online gaming platforms during the tourney also saw a considerable increase (+26%) this year compared to 2019.

Social Engagement Up

General interest around college basketball on YouTube has also grown considerably this year, with more audiences interacting with game highlights and tutorials on “how to set up the perfect March Madness brackets.” Apart from increased engagement across YouTube, we also saw a 31% lift in engagement around the official social March Madness handles compared to the 2019. Gonzaga, Florida and USC are undoubtedly the online fan favorites, followed by Baylor and Michigan.

Methdology

We used MiQ’s proprietary Advanced TV integration with LG and Vizio to track the activity of more than 3 million households that tuned in to March Madness programming this year. These household profiles were further mapped to our ad serving integrations to create digital profiles of 7.8 million distinct March Madness followers, which were then used to analyze audience behavior online.

Rebecca Rosborough is chief marketing officer at MiQ, a programmatic media partner to marketers and agencies.

Nielsen families in about 140 local TV markets won’t have to record their viewing habits in antiquated paper diaries beginning mid-next year, as the ratings measurement company hurtles into the 21st century and full electronic measurement.

Nielsen said that beginning in mid-2017 it will introduce full electronic measurement into its local television ratings service across all 210 designated market areas. The company will incorporate return path data from set-top boxes and other electronic measurement into local ratings, including the 140 smallest TV markets were paper diaries are used now. The company plans to fully phase out the paper diaries in early 2018.

Paper diaries have been sitting near Nielsen family television sets for more than 60 years, offering personal level insights into viewing habits and trends, which the market has transformed into billions of dollars in advertising over the years.

Related: Recalling the Fallibility of Nielsen's TV Diary

The move to full electronic service isn’t connected to the company’s Total Audience Measurement initiatives, but it allows the company to provide more consistent, stable and reliable measurement across all of its markets.

“By tapping into the strengths of return path data and electronic measurement, and combining it with Nielsen’s gold-standard panels and meters, we will be delivering a superior product to help all local clients address current challenges and better position for future trends,” said Nielsen product leadership president Megan Clarken in a statement.  “This enhancement is part of Nielsen’s commitment to invest in and transform how local TV is measured in a cross-platform world across all screens and devices.

I was maybe 7 when we became a Nielsen family. My mother wanted to throw the diary away, but I wouldn’t let her because Nielsen had sent it with a dollar.

“If we don’t do it, Momma,” I said, “we’ll have to give the dollar back.” So the diary became my project, and for the month of July I monitored my family’s television movements on a mission.

It was only at the end of the month when my mother looked over my work that I learned I’d filled the entire thing out wrong.

There was one column for the TV being on, you see, and another column for the TV being off. And the entire month, I had marked off when the tv was on, and vice-a-versa. Nielsen had paid me a dollar, I had worked hard to earn that dollar and I had let them down. “Keep the dollar,” Momma said. “They’ll figure it out.”

More than 30 years later, I still think about that Nielsen diary. How accurate was the reporting of a 7-year-old anyway?

In addition to the already disclosed on/off atrocity, I’d misspelled show names and made other mistakes. Why, I’d said “Magnum PI” was on Channel 4! I’d also marked myself as watching programs when I was really watching a family member watch the program. No one else would record their time, so if my brother watched “Voltron,” it meant I watched “Voltron” -- if only so I could write down what times he watched. That meant Nielsen measured two data points when by rights there only should have been one and — as I was older and a different gender than my brother — that the viewer demographics were polluted too.

Then there was that whole “television is on but no one is paying attention” column. What about that? Was it a trick question? Of course I was paying attention. Why, they paid me a dollar! Did Nielsen want my 7-year-old self to reveal I was slacking on the job? So if someone else left the TV on, I stayed in the living room watching it -- if for no other reason than to record that no one else was watching. Why, what if I left the living room too, then someone came back and their viewing wasn’t recorded?

Looking back, I have no other memories from that summer besides the Nielsen diary. It’s a wonder I didn’t grow blind or obese.

Fast-forward to this summer, when I spoke at the OTT Executive Summit in New York. In the session after mine, “Real-Life OTT Content Case Studies: Selecting an Audience, Producing Content, Launching Across Platforms, Monetizing and Measurement,” a panelist said the difficulty with video-on-demand (VOD) is there’s no real way to measure who’s watching. This, other panelists agreed, was an area where VOD was yet to rival traditional, broadcast television. Apparently, the fallibility of OTT VOD data compared to broadcast is a common industry perception.

To Nielsen’s credit, viewership in major markets is recorded on a box now. But, according to the company website, more than one million paper diaries still get mailed out every year (source: ).

While Nielsen still apparently relies on the errant 7-year-old, OTT VOD uses slightly more scientific ways to tell who’s watching how much — one might even call it technology. Any website, if designed correctly, is perfectly capable of telling how you found the page, your IP address, your location, whether you’ve been on the site before, what browser you’re on, which version of that browser it is, what kind of computer you own and more — with no additional effort. Let the site drop a cookie, and it’ll know how much total time you spend online, which websites you visited next, which font you use when you email your mother. And all you have to do is click.

Granted, there are advantages to the traditional diary system that neither VOD nor Nielsen’s box can measure. For example, a website cookie cannot (yet) tell you if someone’s watching a video with me. It also can’t tell you if my mom borrowed my computer to check out HGTV.com. So, yes, it’s fallible. But the industry perception of OTT VOD viewership data being less accurate than that of broadcast TV is, well, the most inaccurate thing of all.

But then again, what do I know? After all, I just got paid a dollar.

Terena Bell is cofounder and CEO of TVRunway.

Anyone who has been around the media business for any length of time has heard the song before – [insert calendar year here] is the year we will finally experience the joy of true cross platform ratings measurement.  But at the risk of having to eat crow in the next six months, 2016 is beginning to shape up as the year it finally happens.

In a recent research report, top media and telecom analyst Tom Eagan of Telsey Advisory Group laid out the case for 2016 as the Year of Measurement, and it seems as if the pieces are finally begin falling  into place.

According to Eagan, with the Summer Olympics and a Presidential election slated for 2016, an additional $3.5 billion in incremental ad revenue will flow into the market, increasing “pressure for TV networks to demonstrate the benefits of their platform despite declining ratings and low-level targeting ability.”

That makes sense – with TV ad revenue growth dwindling cross the board, content providers have been scrambling for ways to take up the slack, and all have pointed to the absence of a reliable way to measure what is becoming an increasingly large audience that watches programming outside of the living room.

Add that to mounting evidence that cord cutting is no longer a mere annoyance to pay TV companies – pay TV continues to lose share as housing growth climbs, which means either no one’s watching or a growing number of people are finding other than traditional means to watch shows.

There are a growing number of companies that claim to have the full measurement answer. Rentrak has gained a lot of traction in the past few years with its set-top based measurement and has landed deals with broadcasters and ad buyers by the bucketful. And with new products like MMX Multi-Platform, MMX Mobile and vCE, comScore has  also has been at the forefront of multi-platform measurement.

Nielsen has been taking it on the chin as content providers line up to criticize the lack of a new measurement currency, but the industry standard-bearer has not been sitting idly by either.

Eagan noted that in its second quarter conference call July 28, Nielsen indicated that recent contract renewals with entertainment companies included expanded measurement requirements, which he saw as a “signal that they were preparing for a cross platform measurement.”

He added that with the roll out of new services like  DCR (Digital Content Ratings), its OTT audience measurement deal with Roku; and VOD measurement in the second half of this year, Nielsen “appears positioned to create a cross-platform currency.”

Creating that new currency is vital.

“The successful launch of these new services, will of course, be critical as will the market's (and the players') willingness to coalesce around a common currency,” Eagan wrote.