The current state of the economy isn’t likely to significantly effect CBS’s ad revenue from March Madness.

Ryan Moss
Media Coordinator

The NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament started last Thursday meaning that "March Madness" is here in full force. Studies have shown that most companies typically suffer losses during this time due to a lack of productivity from their employees. For CBS, this is one thing it doesn’t have to worry about, since it is the network carrying all the games and therefore receiving all the advertising revenue.

Since 1999 over 291 different sponsors have spent a total of $4.2 billion on TV advertising during the tournament. The record high was set last year with $643 million being spent by 102 advertisers. In addition to TV advertising revenue, CBS also receives digital ad revenue from broadcasting games on its website, which in 2008 this was around $23 million.

With the current state of the economy some expect CBS’s March Madness advertising revenue to decline. However that doesn’t look to be the case at least for online ads. According to the Wall Street Journal, CBS said that $30 million will be generated from online ads, which is a 30% increase from 2008. But, how TV advertising revenue will compare to years past remains to be seen and likely won’t be released until after the championship game on April 6.