CBSSports.com, in partnership with CBS Sports, CBS College Sports Network and the NCAA, has released traffic figures for NCAA March Madness on Demand for the first four days (First & Second Round) of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. In total, there were 3,318,844 total unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand video player, a 129% increase over 2007 figures (1,448,546 unique visitors).
A new feature this year, the “Boss Button” – which dumps the streaming game for a serious-looking spreadsheet – has been clicked 2,190,488 times thus far.
If you love numbers, read on.
2008 NCAA March Madness on Demand traffic figures through Sunday, March 23
— 3,318,844 total daily unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand video player (comparable 2007 figure was 1,448,546 — 129% growth)
— Total minutes of live streaming video and audio consumed in the first four days of the tournament (March 20-23): 3,705,092 total hours (222,305,520 minutes). This figure surpasses the entire 2007 total of minutes of live video and audio consumption (2,716,236 hours — 162,974,160 minutes) resulting in 36% year-over-year growth and counting.
— Over 3.6 million fans are currently playing in CBSSports.com bracket games across the web, including the largest bracket application on Facebook. The total number CBSSports.com brackets participants is up 62% from 2007. (2.2 million)
— 2,190,488 clicks of the "Boss Button" (figure not available for 2007)
— 571,297 VIP registrants (2007 figure was 468,720 — 22% growth)
2008 NCAA March Madness on Demand Consumption tidbits
— The First Round Georgia vs. Xavier game on 3/20/08 had a record-setting total of 376,000 hours of consumption. This mark easily eclipsed the previous record high of 133,000 total hours which was set in 2006 (Winthrop vs. Tennessee). Kentucky vs. Marquette on 3/20/08 also broke the 300K barrier with 325,000 hours.
— The average stream for Cornell vs. Stanford on 3/20/08 (23.5 minutes per stream) was over four minutes longer than any other game thus far. This is due to the fact that the game tipped off at 4:40 PM ET and was the only game playing at the time.
