CBS Sports has just released the final tally of their traffic figures for this year’s NCAA March Madness, and the results are pretty impressive. Over the course of the tournament, viewers watched a total of 8.6 million total hours of streamed audio and video (a 75% increase over the 4.92 million last year). 7.52 million visitors used the on Demand video player, versus 4.76 million last year. During the Final Four (semifinal) round and championship games, viewers watched 515,000 total hours of content, which was a 51% increase over last year’s stats.
There were also 2.77 million clicks of the ‘Boss Button’ – a feature that allowed viewers surreptitiously watching the games from work to quickly pull up a fake spreadsheet whenever someone walked by.
These figures still pale in comparison to the number of people who watched the tournament on TV, but they beat out CBSSport’s expectations (they had previously predicted a total of 7.2 million visitors.
Awesome
I used the CBS site to watch the NDSU vs. UK game without interruption. I also recorded the game on my DVR, and even here in Fargo less than half the actual game was shown live on TV (coverage kicked back and forth between games).
Hooray for the Intertubes!
With all events that are streamed, I’m curious about bandwidth costs relative to the ad revenue … was this a profitable venture for them, or just good for publicity for the tv coverage where they make the real ad money? Anyone know?
We definitely have a priority of watching sports. A good way to get away from the “negatives” at the moment!
“We definitely have a priority of watching sports.”
Allan this is what I don’t get about you guys. Why don’t you go out and play? Isn’t that a better way to get away from the “negatives” at the moment!????
Please wake up ….play and participate.
Big deal, a single day of Youku generates 21 million hours of view time:
http://buzz.you...fe-at-youkucom/
Interestingly enough, I read that the NCAA final game was the lowest rated final ever – presumably because of the early blowout. But in general even broadcast numbers were up over last year. We also saw a big boost with the 2009 Bracket Challenge application on Facebook – 1.6 million users this year (#1 tournament app on Facebook) compared to 350K in 2008. A lot of that is because of Facebook growth, but we were also able to leverage a much larger population.
Bryan Bennett
Head of Marketing, Watercooler
Umm, why is there no mention of the fact that this functionality is SILVERLIGHT powered? Thats a pretty important detail considering the MLB fiasco no?
Agreed. With silvercrap linux users were left in the dark. Get a clue and use something more universal.
It was a pretty slick service. Can’t even imagine how many games were watched at the office instead of working!