March Mad Money!

I did some quick calculating and the end number was astounding…wait for it – ’til the end of this piece. We marketers dream about the day when we will commission the Holy Grail of commercials…the Super Bowl spot. However, a little digging finds another event that far eclipses the NFL’s championship game.

The Super Bowl ads ran about twice the rate compared to the NCAA tourney this year – $3M per 30 seconds as opposed to $1.5M for March Madness; however the concentration and shear number of games lends to a much bigger jackpot. The NCAA tourney games run at a rate of 33% advertising. Every one minute of commercials buys you – the viewer, two minutes of basketball action.

Multiply the per-minute cost ($3M) by the number of games (67) and the number of commercial minutes per game (40 – very conservative!) and you get – $ 8,040,000,000! Yeah that’s eight billion…with a “B”! By comparison the Super Bowl brings in around $300M. Madness alright…Mad Money!